As a movie director and producer specializing in sci-fi flicks, Stanley Isaacs has brought some wild disaster scenarios to the screen. He made one about the moon heading toward a crash into the Earth, for example.

Isaacs is now looking ahead toward a more realistic catastrophe for a side business. The moon may never crash into the Earth, but there’s going to be an earthquake in Los Angeles one day, so he’s started selling the Grab and Go Vest, a ready-to-wear emergency response kit with survival necessities.

Isaacs launched the product earlier this year. But the idea was born before the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, when Isaacs stocked the pockets of a vest from a movie set with survival essentials and stashed it in his closet. When he felt the jolt in his Cahuenga Pass home, he rushed to his closet, reached into the vest pockets and gave his wife, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the flashlight and radio.

The experience was an afterthought until last summer, when the couple took an earthquake-preparedness class. After their first day of training, Isaacs was reminded of the vest by his wife.

“The first thing you lose in an earthquake is a sense of control,” he said. “It was etched in her mind because she had light and communication.”

The next day, he chatted with a firefighter who was teaching the class about which 10 items should go into a vest.

Isaacs is now selling the vests, which include a multipurpose tool, a blanket and water purification tablets, for $74.95 on the Internet.

Isaacs is airing radio advertisements and said he has a couple of bulk orders in the works, but the vests aren’t exactly flying off the shelves. One thousand have been purchased already.

“Sales have increased since the disaster in Japan,” he said. “But it’s a slow building process. There’s resistance, because people don’t understand that they need this.”