Preparedness Test

Think you don't live in an area that is at risk of having an earthquake? Think again! According to the Red Cross: "Forty-five states and territories in the United States are at moderate to very high risk of earthquakes, and they are located in every region of the country." That is a pretty high percentage! How prepared are you in case of an emergency? Take this test to help give you an idea: 1. Has your family rehearsed fire escape routes from your home? yes/no 2. Does your family know what to do before, during, and after an earthquake or other emergency situation? yes/no 3. Do you have heavy objects (that can fall during an earthquake) hanging over beds? yes/no 4. Do you have access to an operational flashlight in every occupied bedroom? (use of candles is not recommended unless you are sure there is no leaking gas) yes/no 5. Do you keep shoes near your bed to protect your feet against broken glass? yes/no 6. If a water line is ruptured during an earthquake, do you know how to shut off the main water line to your house? yes/no 7. Can this water valve be turned off by hand-without the use of a tool? yes/no 8. Do you know where the main gas shut-off valve to your house is located? yes/no 9. If you smell gas, do you know how to-and have the tool-to shut it off? yes/no 10. Gas valves usually cannot be turned off by hand. Is there a tool near your valve? Yes/no 11. Would you be able to safely restart your furnace when gas is safely available? yes/no 12. Do you have working smoke alarms in the proper places? Yes/no 13. In case of minor fire, do you have a fire extinguisher that you know how to use? yes/no 14. Do you have duplicate keys and copies of important insurance and other papers stored outside your home? 15. Do you have a functional emergency radio to receive emergency information? yes/no 16. If your family had to evacuate your home, have you identified a meeting place? yes/no If an emergency lasted for three days (72-hours) before help was available to you and your family.... 17. Would you have sufficient food? yes/no 18. Would you have the means to cook food without either gas or electricity? yes/no 19. Would you have sufficient water for drinking, cooking, and sanitary needs? yes/no 20. Does each individual have access to a self-sustaining 72-hour evacuation kit? yes/no 21. Would you be able to carry or transport these items? yes/no 22. Have you established an out-of-state contact? yes/no 23. Do you have a first aid kit in your home and in each car? yes/no 24. Do you have work gloves and some tools for minor rescue and clean up? yes/no 25. Do you have emergency cash on hand? (preferably in small bills-see previous post) yes/no 26. Without electricity and gas, do you have a way to heat at least part of your home? yes/no 27. If you need medications, do you have a month's supply on hand? (see previous post) yes/no 28. Do you have a plan for toilet facilities if there is an extended water shortage? yes/no 29. Do you have a supply of food, clothing, and appropriate fuel for cooking and heating? For 3 weeks? For 3 months? For a year? yes/no How did you do on this test? I'm afraid I have a lot of work to do. I plan on tackling one item at a time!

Do you have cash on hand in case of an emergency?

In cases of catastrophic emergency, like Hurricane Katrina, ATM's and banks are often shut down.  If and when they are able to get an ATM up and running, there will be long lines, and the  ATM will easily run out of money.  If you are able to actually withdraw cash, there will likely be a limit as to the amount you can withdraw.  $40.00 isn't going to get you very far.  The advice I received from someone who was dispatched from the Red Cross to assist during the aftermath of Katrina, said to have at least $500 on hand IN SMALL BILLS!  Why small bills?  Basically, it's much easier to trade small bills. Cash will be in short supply and most people/stores, aren't going to have change for large bills.  If you are trying to buy something from someone and only have a $20 bill, they may not have change, and if you are desperate enough, you could end up paying $20 for a gallon of water or box of matches.  So keep plenty of $1.00's, $5.00's, and $10.00's available.  It also makes it easier to build up your emergency fund.  Stashing away a couple of $5.00 bills is much easier than putting away $100.00.  So start now!  Every little bit helps!

The importance of medications in your 72-hour kits

You may know by now how important it is to store at least a 3 day supply of medications in your 72-hour kits.  This is not only in case of a catastrophic emergency (earthquake, flood, etc.).  It's just a plain good idea to have extra medication on hand.  True story:  We recently made a last minute trip  to Idaho to stay with my sister for Christmas (as in we decided at 11:00 am on Christmas morning we were going up that day:).  We were packed and ready to go in an hour-no small feat y'all considering there are 6 of us.  Anyway, our middle son has severe asthma.  We always say that as long as we have his medication packed, we can forget just about anything else.  Well, we did great and remembered to pack his bag of medication.  HOWEVER, we weren't so lucky on the way home and left the bag in my sister's guest room, high up on a shelf :(  No bueno.  We would normally be fine, we always order a 3 month supply of all maintenance medications through mail order.  However, we just reordered and the new shipment was on it's way, but would take a couple of days to get here.  Fortunately, I remembered I had a few days worth of medication tucked away in our 72-hour kit.  It sure saved the day.  I didn't have to have my sister overnight the medicine to us, and I didn't have to worry about trying to get something from the pharmacy.  Morale of the story: I definitely recommend ordering your meds 3 months at a time if possible.  Then, in addition to that, put away a few days worth in your 72-hour kit.  You won't regret it!

Longer Term Food Storage

     From the Provident Living Manual: "Build a small supply of food that is part of your normal, daily diet. One way to do this is to purchase a few extra items each week to build a one-week supply of food. Then you can gradually increase your supply until it is sufficient for three months. These items should be rotated regularly to avoid spoilage. For longer-term needs, and where permitted, gradually build a supply of food that will last a long time and that you can use to stay alive, such as wheat, white rice, and beans.   These items can last 30 years or more when properly packaged and stored in a cool, dry place. A portion of these items may be rotated in your three-month supply."
     One way to get start on your longer term storage, is to buy a "starter kit" from the cannery.  I'll admit, I have been pretty resistant to storing these longer term items,  they are just items I always thought I don't use on a regular basis.  However, I've had a change of heart lately :)  Most items have a storage life of 30 or more years.  I'm sure between now and 30 years I will have use for this stuff (well, maybe not the beans except in an extreme emergency :)  The truth is, when I unpacked this stuff from the cannery, I felt so darn good about having this on hand!  For those of you unfamiliar with the LDS Church's cannery, you can go and actually can your own food storage for cost!   It's really fun to do ( I enjoy it anyway), I have just found I have a hard time finding the time to do it.  I finally figured out you can just stop in and pick up a "Starter Kit", without having to can it yourself, at least at our cannery.  The cast is $24.95 (Price updated November 1, 2013) and includes the items in the picture above (note that you can save about $1.60 if you were to go into the cannery and can it all yourself, to me, it was worth paying a little more to just run in and pick it up).  The goal for our family, is to have a starter kit purchased for every member of our family.  We plan on doing this a little at a time, buying one with each paycheck, or one a month.
     To see if there is an LDS cannery near you, check this link.  For hours of operation and to see if you need to schedule and appointment, call the number listed in the link.

Power Failure light, 1 of the 2 most important purchases for you to make

I attended the earthquake readiness class at our Stake Emergency fair.  What I learned was that this is one of the most important purchases you need to make, it's probably the best $10.00 you will ever spend.  You plug these night lights into your kids rooms, as well as your own.  If the power ever goes out, these lights come on, when unplugged, they act as a flashlight (that you can actually find).  They have built in rechargeable batteries, so you never have to worry about finding batteries.  I had a little trouble find these at Home Depot.  Just look for the night light stuff, these are with them.  Look specifically for "Power Failure" lights.  They cost right around $10.00.  The other "most important" purchase you need to make is a strap for your water heater.  I haven't bought ours yet, but will post all about it when I do :)

Free Hygiene kit

You may not be thinking too much about adding hygiene items to your 72 hour kit.  I didn't want things that would take up a lot of space (we barely have room for our food), but I found that at Walmart.com you can sign up for free samples.  There are several samples which go well in a 72 hour kit, plus they are small, light, and best of all, free!  I've received vitamins, deodorant, toothpaste, wipes, shampoo, etc.  Here is the link, they don't always have stuff, so you will have to check back: http://instoresnow.walmart.com/In-Stores-Now-Free-Samples.aspx

72 hour kit

I needed a place to store our 72 hour food kits (there is a very nice family in our neighborhood who organizes these every year for our local church group), they cost about $7.50 or so per kit and have a good variety of food.  You do have to replace them every year (you just eat the old ones which is kind of fun).  I plan on supplementing these with emergency food bars from the Army/Navy store which last 10 years.  More on those later.  Anyway, I bought this bucket at Home Depot today for $2.50, the lid was $1.00  I liked it because it's bright orange and would be easy to find, plus it would offer some water protection, and has a handle for carrying.