Emergency Preparedness

In the past four to six weeks we've had two events occur that really got me thinking about how I need to be prepared for my family in the event of an emergency. The first event that happened was a mild ice storm that turned into a few days of no school for the kids. This wasn't a major catastrophic event, but it did inconvenience us for a few days. The second, and more terrifying for me, was a tornado. I was at home with our three year old when the bad weather started, and stressed for the next three hours, worrying about whether or not a tornado was going to hit our house. The tornado did happen, but thankfully not in our vicinity.

With the ice storm, it wasn't imminent danger I was concerned with, it was what necessities did we have or not have in the house to survive for a couple of days. The first thing I figured out that I needed was something to melt the ice off the driveway so that I could park either in the garage or in our driveway to avoid a potential accident by leaving my car parked in the street. I looked at two stores for ice melt, and discovered that I was probably a couple of hours late because they were sold out. I was finally able to get into our driveway with the help of a bucket of sand from my parents house, but decided that I would definitely get some ice melt in advance and store it in the garage for future use. The ice storm could have had the potential to be much worse, and it was for some residents since it caused power outages.

The tornado really caused me a huge amount of stress, and there were a couple of times I was literally in tears as me and my three year were in the closet with blankets and pillows surrounding us, waiting for the storm to pass. After all the storms had passed, and everything returned to normal I really made it a point to make sure we were prepared the next time. I'll be stocking up on water, as I think this is one of the most important things to have on hand, but I'm also thinking about what kind of alternative cooking method I can use if our electricity or gas are off. Our pantry is almost fully stocked for at least two weeks worth of cooking, but I have never kept powdered milk, so this may be something new we will add just to have on hand for an emergency. I'm actually making a list of what things need to be done in the event of a tornado, because I started panicking and couldn't remember everything I needed to do. Whatever you do don't wait until the emergency happens to get prepared.

(The picture above is not from our recent ice storm, but one from over the last couple of years)