Emergency preparedness is kind of important out here. We live 30 minutes away from a hospital and grocery stores. The power goes out on a regular basis. In addition, it just makes sense to be prepared in case of.....whatever.
The problem with this is that trying to imagine scenarios where you need to be prepared is no fun at all. Being as I have an anxiety disorder on top of that, it's a short jump from 'prepared' to 'obsessed' to 'lost her mind'. I'm trying to keep a balance between 'prepared' and 'scared crapless'. It's not as easy as it sounds.
There are a lot of ways to be prepared. In fact, I've heard that there's a whole new movement out there called 'Preppers'. I've heard them spoken of with a sneer and a rolling of eyes. It seems to me that anyone willing to do the work to prepare for emergencies should be lauded and not derided. If they're prepared, they won't be stealing your food and resources come The Big One.
At any rate, we think it's a good idea to be prepared. The big question is What to Prepare For? An excellent question - because there is a lot that can go wrong out there. We have done several things for general preparedness:
- Plant a garden. I garden year round and save seed.
- Store water. Our well works on an electric pump. When the power goes out, so does the well. I've stored water in food safe 5 gallon buckets. You need to store about a gallon [or more] per person per day.
- Food storage. Store what your family eats. At least 3 days worth [that's 72 hours]. We have a few months worth. That plus the garden would feed us for a year.
- First Aid Kit
- Bug Out Bags. If we had to evacuate, we can grab these bags and know that we're good to go for 72 hours, which is at least how long it would take government to get organized and come looking for us with help. In a city. [More on that in a future post.]
If you have the desire, it's a good idea to test your kit. Here's a fabulous post by a mom who built her kits, then took her family into the desert for 3 days to test them. I loved this post and learned a lot from it.
Here's an LDS list of things to put into a 72 hour kit, but please note that this is more than you'd need to survive, and probably more than you'd want to carry if you had to walk out of a disaster.
The trick is to find the balance that's right for you. Do one thing this week to make you and your family a bit more prepared.
Tomorrow I'll tell you about our Bug Out Bags.
