Preparedness?

How many of us have an emergency plan?  Food, water, medications?  I have been thinking over this for a couple of days now. 

If I was in the path of a storm, I like to think I'd evacuate.  I've been through a Cat 1 and Cat 2 storm here in my state, and I was fairly comfortable staying home.  The last hurricane we had, we lost power for 8 days.  There was no power for gas stations, stores, or anything.  That was an eye opener for me, though.  It was really sobering to be in line for gas at the one station open, sitting for an hour.  Being limited to ten gallons, cash only.  Seeing people screaming at each other, fist fights breaking out of line placement, threats. 

That was enough for me.  I have no desire to do anything like that again, or any worse.  If I'm encouraged to evacuate, I will be gone.  I'd load up my van, toss the kids in, and drive in the opposite direction. I'm extremely lucky to have that option.  So many don't, either because they are homebound, without transportation, or too ill.

But I was contemplating what I'd take with me.  My laptop.  My kids scrapbooks.  Coats, blankets, pillows, clothes.  Water, juice, milk, cereal.  Nutrigrain bars, medications, soap, diapers.  Batteries.  The tablets my son has  in his camping pack to clean water, to make it safe for drinking. 

Which got me to thinking.  What preparations have I made for emergency?  I've poo-poo'ed it in the past.  My father in law talks end times incessantly, and he's told us to get enough food for two months, as well as water and gasoline.  I've done a bit here and there - some water, some extra cans, a manual can opener.  A couple of bags of charcoal, some extra waterproof matches.  But, I'm wondering if I should do more.  After the gas price jump yesterday, I've decided to try to keep my van as close to full as possible.  It won't cost me less, but it will feel better for me - $10 each day is easier on me than $85 or more at once.  I paid $2.53 a gallon for gas at 12 noon, and I drove The Hubster's Suburban last night.  I filled it at the same gas station - $3.09 a gallon. I think I'll try to get a few more extra cans of food, and stick them in the garage.  Probably some boxed milk, and some water.  After all, I do live in a high hurricane area.  I probably should be better prepared than I am.

What do you have in case of emergency?  What would make you evacuate?  Do you think everyone should make attempts to evacuate if encouraged to do so?

Comments

[Tyra]

My husband and I just had this discussion last night. We do have a large rubber maid container full of camping supplies we could use, a small camping stove but as far as food and water I don't have anything stockpiled.

I live in Maryland so we do have hurricanes from time to time. The last one we had was Isabelle, but I only lost power for a few hours and I lost my phone for a few days. I did fill up my big bathtub with water just in case.

This is something I'm really going to think about because if I'm told to evacuate, I'm outta there.

Have a good day!

[Gretchen]

Living along the gulf coast in Texas, I can guarantee that I would bail on anything past a cat2.

As for supplies, I try to keep most things on hand. I am, as my husband says, a water snob, so I always have bottled water available.

I cannot imagine the horrible loss so many are feeling right now. I only pray that it never happens again, to anyone.

[Theresa]

I am ashamed to say, I have nothing ready in case of an emergency. All I'd really want, is my family. The rest is just stuff. And you can bet I would have evacuated pronto!

[chris]

We don't have hurricanes, but we have snowstorms that knock out power. But it is a completely different situation since water is readily available and our primary concern is keeping warm. We have a propane cookstove and cans of propane. We have kerosene heaters. We usually have plenty of food in the house.

The thing that is so sad about Hurricane katrina is that the people who stayed behind are, for the most part, the economically disadvantaged. They literally had nowhere to go and no way to get anywhere. Poverty like that is not something I can fully wrap my brain around either.

[Sarah]

Living in Minnesota, I'd have to say that most of our natural disasters don't give us much warning. Tornados? Maybe a few minutes. Maybe. Apart from that we only mainly have snowstorms which can, and do, knock out power or phones now and again. And in the end, the biggest concern would be loosing our heating. Tempratures routinely go below zero and it doesn't take much to make it go to twenty or thrity below. Loosing heat would be a bad thing. But there isn't much to be done about that. My in laws have a fire place and my parents used to have a wood burning furnace as a back up to their regular one. As in all things, we'd make do.

[AmyH]

We don't have an emergency kit that we could just "grab and go" if we needed to. But then, I'm in the west. We rarely get severe weather in my area. Forest fires in the mountains, tornadoes on the plains, but in the 'burbs, just an occasional blizzard. But beyond the basic food and supplies, I'm wondering about keeping all the important documents together in a file, like birth certificates and such. Do people already do that? Like many, I cannot even imagine the horror and devastation this has wrought.

[dena]

I am not even a little prepared. With Isabel we didn't even go out and buy batteries. Our power was out for nearly two weeks and it was hot. I kept saying that I'd buy some early in anticipation of what's expected to be a long and lengthy hurricane season, but I've yet to do so.

visiting from michele's

[cassie-b]

hello -
Have a nice day.

[Carmi]

You have done everyone a favor by posting this. You've made us all think twice about how close we truly are to losing the fundamental pillars of a comfortable existence.

Back from Michele's. Your blog is definitely growing on me!

[dollymama]

We really got into the Y2K preparation thing, thinking that even if nothing happened then, eventually we might be very glad we had stuff on hand for emergencies. We started accumulating camping supplies, including one year that we asked for good quality sleeping bags for each family member for Christmas. We usually have bottles water on hand, although I discovered the other day when we had a water main break that I had somehow used it all up!

We have a big supply of dry beans and some wheat, so if we had to, we could live on that for a pretty long time. I definitely need to start thinking about stocking up more.

I used to do a lot of canning, even canning ground venison, potato chunks, and every kind of fruit or veggie I could get my hands on. It's mighty nice if the power goes out, to have that kind of variety on hand and requiring no cooking. I fell out of the habit of canning in recent years, but am thinking I will try to get back into it as I am able.

We don't live anywhere near hurricanes, but if we did I think we would definitely have at least $1000 cash on hand in case we needed to evacuate. Really, it's a good idea anyhow, but we almost never have cash.

Good post idea! I may use it as a jumping off point for my own blog.

[Lisa C]

To save money, I stock up on thigns we use when there is a sale. So I could feed the family for at least a week on water, juice, cereal, canned tuna, PB & J sandwiches and tortilla chips. That's the extent of my emergency preparedness.