Yes, we are on our final week of our emergency preparedness makeover. I hope that you all take an opportunity to assess where you are with preparedness and see what you can do with a week's time in making your situation better and set some solid goals for the future. In the 4 week plan we have just worked on, we have covered the following things:
1. 72 Hour Comfort Kits
2. 72 Hour Food and Water Kits
3. Document Preservation and ER Copies (found in the finance section of this blog)
Now, we will hit the last section:
4. Survival Kits
I wanted to do our family's emergency preparedness this way because it makes it easier for me to manage it in our lifestyle. I think it is hard to take on this whole preparedness idea in one fail swoop! I prefer to focus on one area at a time and keep it simple and so-able. In 6 month's time, I will go through these 4 ER preparedness weeks of focus and reassess and re-buy what is needed. In the other 10 months of the year, I can have greater peace and comfort knowing we are trying...
Are my kits and preparation perfect? No! They are not. This gives me something to work on for the fall. I assume over time, I will find better products, have more budget to buy the things I might like to have, but in the meantime, something is better than nothing and so we do with what we have and then we make goals to better it in 6 months.
I found the survival kit to be the most daunting of all the tasks. I suppose it is the thought of outdoor survival that causes me great concern. We have some health issues and seeing us managing such a task as survival in the "wilderness" is, well...intimidating.
I assume there are many in our ward that feel similarly. However, I thought about the risks of not preparing and how we think sometimes tongue in cheek (I have actually heard people say this), "Well, if it's my time to go...." Well, what if it isn't??? (laughs) You know, if I had an older widow in my neighborhood, I couldn't possibly feel good about just leaving her to "whatever" because it was "her time". No, I would want to help her and so, to my senior friends who maybe see no point in preparing, I would ask you, "Do you want to make yourself easier to save?" (smiles) When that kindly young elder in the ward comes to check on you in an emergency, will you have your food, water, clothes, blankets on the ready for him to help you make it to safety? When your children call and ask you, "Mom, we heard about...(insert a difficulty)...are you going to be OK until we can come for you?" Well, will you be? Never think preparedness is simply a choice of saving one person. It isn't. It's about whole lot more than that!
When I look at survival kits, invariably there seem to be common components to each kit. I could see that a person with a camper might have the advantage of already having shelter, cooking, sanitation and toileting facilities. So, when I begin this, I am simply going to have you look to the following needs and see if you have what you might need in each of these areas of survival that would be most helpful. Don't visualize yourselves backpacking a tent into the hills! Please, most people just give up here and don't go any further. What you need to do is have a supply of survival goods that would be helpful to yourself if you needed to evacuate or help someone else evacuate or have someone help you evacuate. Have faith that if you prepare, you shall not fear. Visualize yourself instead with a shelf of goods that are well cataloged and ready if you need them. That's an easier situation to imagine.
I read in an old preparedness book from one of our first married home wards to think of yourselves in the 3 following situations and then think how you would function and prepare for each:
1. Your house has suffered some damage and your utilities are disrupted, but you can occupy the home.
2. Your house in badly damaged, but you can "camp out" in your back yard or a nearby open space.
3. Your house and neighborhood are completely evacuated and you must relocate for a period of 2-3 weeks.
1. Shelter
Do you have alternative shelter? Do you have a tent, camper, canopy, etc. that could serve as a temporary shelter? Is it somewhere easy to locate or lost in the debris of the garage (that is where most of our stuff resides)? What about ground covers, ropes, and stakes?
2. Extra Bedding
Do you have sleeping bags, air mattresses or extra bedding that would be helpful to have if you had to evacuate or help someone else to do so?
3. Sanitation
Do you have an alternative options for toileting, washing, bathing, cleaning, etc? Could you put together a collection of garbage bags, water, bleach, etc. I have seen many products out there for the bathroom option. Some as simple as a store bought cheap toilet seat set on top of a 5 gallon bucket with a supply of trash bags, biodegradable toilet paper and disinfectant. Just think it though and figure out what might be needed if you were to have a need for these things. Washing can be done in two small bins with laundry soap and wrung in old towels. I have seen some non-electric washing machine set-ups that look nice, but are pricy--maybe something for the future. Your big laundry cleaning bin can suffice double for bathing too. This is all about looking for the things you need to take care of the basics should you not have power, water, sewer, etc. Do you have enough water to clean things? Do you have enough basic cleaners to last a year? Do you have bins, pails, buckets or other useful containers in which to clean dishes, clothing, people, or to use as a make shift toilet?
4. First Aid
There are many kits that come preassembled and are reasonably priced out there. If you want the simplicity, buy one of those. We are latex allergic, so we have to make our own. Next week's addition to this blog will be our home made "health bin" and I will describe what we keep in it.
5. Cooking
Do you have alternative cooking sources? I love the idea of the solar ovens that need no power nor fuel beyond the great big sun we have here. I also love the rocket stoves that you can make with #10 and soup cans: (google: Rocket Stoves). Maybe you are lucky and are a grill expert and have your alternative cook source already heated up in the backyard. Again, do you have an option for cooking, that is the question? Do you have a mess kit for each person that could travel well and do you have a supply of paper plates in case of short term needs? Do you have adequate matches and fuel sources (I would never suggest a large supply of flammables anywhere--think sun source or gather source-- such as twigs, paper, etc. gathered and used to keep a fire going in a fire pit or rocket stove--also think where you might gather these items). Do you have extra can openers (my big fear is to have all of these #10 cans and have only one poor quality can opener!)? Make sure to have easy to prepare food too. Make sure to have "service utensils" so you can serve and prepare food--it's hard to turn pancakes on a camp stove with a mess fork! Also, a supply of aluminum foil is handy for many purposes. I remember many fishing trips as a youngster eating foil wrapped fish and foil veggie packs done over an open fire. In saying this, maybe you better have some salt and pepper in your kit too. I remember feeling something was missing from those meals.
6. Lighting and Heat Sources
How would you keep yourselves warm if needed (or cool for that matter)? There are "safe" 120 hour candles that double as heat source for cooking as well as lighting out there. They are considered "safe" because you can use them in a closed room without ventilation. Remember that many portable fuel burning heaters give off emissions which can be poisonous when used indoors. Please consult an expert on such heat sources. Never use a heat source product inside a shelter without knowing if it is safe or not. Be smart about this. Lighting can come in light sticks, flares (outdoors only), flashlights and batteries, lanterns, etc. Again, lighting carries the same risk as heat sources--if they are fuel sourced, they might be unsafe indoors and around any unstable utility gas source" (for example gas lines can leak during emergencies such as earthquakes and no heat source should be introduced without turning off gas and assessing the situation). Staying warm can be done with adequate bedding, sleeping bags rated for cold weather, and safe indoor sources of heat. I am reluctant to recommend products, as each person's needs are different and also people have a lot of things already that will work. My husband shares that in his 100 miler trips as a youth they used black garbage sacks to keep rain off of them and to gather any daylight heat. He said when it rained, they put one up over their legs and one cut on the end over their heads and tried to stay dry this way. I guess a good amount of heavy duty garbage sacks would be helpful. Also, can you build a fire? Do you know how to start a fire in a safe place and keep yourself warm? Skills in emergencies are as important as gear. Staying cool is a little harder here, but obviously closed shades on windows or being near tree shade and water helps. Dabbing water on the skin has a cooling effect as well.
7. Backpacks
Yikes, I said it! Yes, having a way to carry basics away in an evacuation is a must. Duffle bags work well and so do small suitcases. Again, think of the three scenarios and realize one of them might require that you take the basics to survive and leave your area. You need to be able to have the gear together. If you are unable to carry such things, just put them together and ask a friend or neighbor to check on you in the event of an emergency. In one of our communities we lived in, we had a CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) who were responsible and capable neighbors who could check on so many homes in an emergency. A good idea is to form a neighborhood group and list concerns and talents that might need to be known in an emergency. Anyway, you do need easy to carry containers to take with you any emergency gear that you might need to have.
8. Water
This is a huge component of emergency preparedness, as it is one of the most vital. Remember you must have your 72 hours of water per person (a gallon a day). Then think about water for your home and cleaning needs. There are oodles of products in which to store water. Some can be bought commercially for the purpose of storing water and have pumps and spigots. Other people simply clean and refill 2 liter bottles, hard plastic liquid laundry soap containers, or any other approved plastic containers. The church website has more about water storage in their provident living section.
9. Useful Tools
Rope, knife, can opener (a couple if you are worried like me), scissors, buckets, hatchet, folding camp shovel, small crescent wrench to turn off utilities, battery or solar powered radio, duct tape, hammer or mallet, binoculars, fishing poles/gear, communication gear (cell phones, walkie talkies, ham radio) and any other thing you can think of that would be helpful.
Honestly, there are pages and pages of idea and items for emergency preparedness. The idea in this writing is to gather what you have together. I think most of us have these things we need already, but it's all over the garage or we have it in a storage unit or we need to maybe buy something here or there. Our family's goal is to get out in our garage and pull all of these items together in one spot. We even have (this is embarrassing) the water storage bins and we have never filled them!!! Talk about not trimming our lamps! Don't give up if you live in a small space. Co-op! Talk with a group of neighbors and agree to share items and assess who has what.
I will try to write about each subsection here in detail. I realize that people like ideas and specifics and lists and such. It's just a big subject and so you start with the big picture. Start by thinking about and looking through what you might have in each of these areas. I want you to do this first because it's needless to spend money on fancy kits when you have the "kit" unassembled in all of your belongings already.
We bought a tent this week. We didn't have one. We used to tent as a young family and then medical issues made that impractical. We have decided that small "practice runs" may be useful from time to time. We bought a small, easy to set up and carry tent. That was our spend this go round.
I think the most important thing is to have all of your items gathered in one area if possible, catalog the items so that you know what you have and then make a goal to obtain carefully, as the budget allows, the things you are missing. Get out in the garage or storage unit before it gets too hot--this is a good excuse to take care of two useful exercises: DI gathering and emergency preparedness. Make it a challenge to gather as much as you can without buying a thing! And please...just do the best you can. Don't get overwhelmed and never start. Just gather items, write them down and then come back in 6 months and enhance what you have already done. Again, our mantra, "Something is better than nothing!"
djw
