Create an emergency preparedness plan.
This prompt was from a while ago. It looked like a fun one, so I put it aside in my drafts to return to when I could give it proper time and attention. And I’m back!
There are different kinds and levels of emergencies to prepare for, of course. I am going to start with the kind of things you might need on any given day, and work down my plan toward “SHTF,” as the preppers say. (I think I am going to start saying “ when the poop hits the propeller” because that’s funny to me and contains no profanity.)
You should have at least one first aid kit. I prefer to have one in the house and one in my car. There are plenty of lists online of what to put into a basic first aid kit, like this one from the American Red Cross. Because I tend to actually use my first aid kit, things get cycled through. It’s a good idea to check for expiration dates, perhaps on the same day you replace batteries in your smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. I usually go with tubes of antibiotic ointment and hydrocortisone cream, rather than packets. I also include a variety of over-the-counter medications: acetaminophen (aka Tylenol), ibuprofen (Advil), diphenhydramine (Benadryl), dimenhydrinate (Dramamine), loperamide (Imodium), calcium carbonate tables (Tums), your preferred cold and flu symptom relief medications, and whatever else you might really want on a day when you can’t get out to a store.
You can usually find the generics in the store labeled for what they do. For example, generic Dramamine is sold for motion sickness and is usually sold as “Motion Sickness Relief” or the like in stores. (Here’s a hot tip, it can also be used for nausea. )
I also recommend a list of emergency contacts and information, plus a couple of charged power banks for keeping phones charged, in the car and in the house. A power bank once got me out of trouble when I got very lost and my phone died on me.
The next thing would be to make sure you have what you need for a 72 hour emergency: food, water, prescription medications, and some way to deal with whatever weather has caused this emergency.
We live in a place that can get quite cold in the winter, so we already have warm winter clothes and many blankets. We don’t have a generator to run electric heaters, but we do have a sectional set up as a double-wide sofa in the basement where we can all pile in with our warm clothes and blankets and snuggle down together in a hamster pile. If you have mylar emergency blankets, sandwich them between other blankets with the shiny side facing you to get heat reflection, insulation, and comfy-coziness.
We do have some electric space heaters for supplementary heat when the lights are on but the temperatures are unusually low; our pipes have been known to freeze up, so preventing that is a big concern of ours. We’ve been lucky to not have any pipes burst on us, and we want to keep it that way.
Ready-to-eat food really came in handy when the electric box behind our house went out and we were without power for a day and a half. I’m a big fan of canned food for this. (Admittedly, canned ravioli is a comfort food for me, so I may be biased.) We don’t buy anything special to keep on hand for emergencies. If you wouldn’t eat it any day of the week, why would you buy it to torture yourself while things are already going sideways?
Meal replacement bars or protein bars are also something you can eat without cooking to stay alive. Some of them taste bad, but they are still sweet and are made to be at least semi-nutritious. If you have kids, find some they like. I have these on hand to make sure I get my recommended amount of daily protein.
If you have a fireplace or grill, you can use those to cook when the power is out too. DO NOT BRING YOUR GRILL INTO THE HOUSE. Carbon monoxide poisoning would really ruin your whole day.
If it is hot and you don’t have access to air conditioning, you can take advantage of evaporative cooling by getting wet. I wouldn’t use any nasty, smelly, stagnant water, but you don’t have to use your drinking water either. This is, unfortunately, less effective if it is humid. At the very least, stay in the shade and stay hydrated.
Store more water than they recommend. You’ll want to have a couple of sturdy buckets too. If you know a potential disaster is coming, fill your buckets and bathtub with water that you can use for cleaning and flushing purposes.
This is getting quite long (for this blog), and I am nowhere near done. I may revisit this topic some other time.
But before I go, one last piece of advice: make sure you have copies of all your important documents in a waterproof, fireproof bag in a place you can grab them to go if you’re evacuated. Trust me, that’s no time to be hunting for your birth certificate and passport.
I know this is less silly than my usual, but I do hope it is useful to someone somewhere sometime.
The Mia Experiment 