Personally, I don’t like to label myself as a prepper — I don’t know why because I pretty much like to be prepared for an emergency – don’t you?
There is nothing worse than an emergency coming or one that is already here and you are not ready and you don’t even know how to get ready so if that is you, you really need to think about your personal safety. When my husband was in the military, I was alone a lot and during a couple of those times I had some scary experiences — ALONE. During one which was an ice storm, we lost power for several days – in Upstate NY in January — so YA — get prepared. I had a lot of candles so when it got dark – at like 4:30 in the afternoon, I could still see. And because I grew up in Canada with parents who loved a good sale on everything from wine to tuna, I pretty much had a lot of canned goods. Also, the advantage of being in a cold place is that you can put food outside to keep it cold. I really didn’t do that, I just used the fresh food first but you could and lots of people did. That ice storm took some people’s power for a month. After a few days, my neighbor wanted to get out and since I had a Jeep and I am a great snow driver, we ventured out — mostly out of boredom. When we got to town and saw all the desperate people lined up at WalMart to buy batteries and generators – which they really didn’t have anymore – we didn’t bother getting in line.
If you did the most recent hurricanes, you also know the drill and here are a few tips for people who are not so sure. These are “at a minimum” tips so at least do these.
– Make sure you own a cooler, a bbq or camp stove and whatever you need for it (gas, ice, etc)
– Buy way more water than you need and buy this WAY BEFORE the disaster. You can buy it regularly and just rotate it out if you drink bottled water but since hurricane season starts next month, you should already have a lot of water by now
– Buy a really good flashlight and a battery or crank operated (or both) lattern (the crank ones don’t last very long but they take no batteries and most kids will crank them so they are a good idea as an extra) and buy extra batteries for all of these. If you regularly use batteries, again, rotate them out and check the expiration as batteries can last several years in their package
– Understand that you need a LOT of water for everything but not all of it need to be drinking water. You can use the water in your pool or rainwater you collected to flush toilets.
– If you are considering dyhydrated food, understand that you will need even more water
– Buy a gallon of bleach. I never use it for laundry or cleaning because it is so irritating to my skin so I have to make a special note to have it. You will need it for cleaning and maybe even to purify your water if you get desperate or run out of bottled water.
– I like candles but they are dangerous so don’t rely on them for lighting. Make sure you buy enough battery operated lighting.
– If you take prescriptions, go get a refill. I always find this amazing that so many people wait until the last minute and I get that this is probably cost related but go get a refill if you can.
– Don’t run around EVER on less than a 1/4 tank of gas. I am always amazed at how many people do and maybe because I lived part of my life in rural Canada I am just like WTF but seriously, I live in Atlanta now and during Katrina (which hit nowhere close to here) Atlanta had a run on gas – like NO gas. And hurricanes will dry up the gas on both ends from people filling up but also from the refineries shutting down.
– Get some CASH — CASH is king during a storm and if the power is out and the store is open, they can only take cash. A lot of people will not do this so don’t be one of them. You don’t need to keep a bunch of cash around but if you hear a storm is coming, go get some cash.