Emergency Family Preparedness

When the sky darkens with storm-clouds and the mighty winds of a hurricane begin to blow, or when a tsunami lifts its foaming brow from the sea to rush roaring onto the land, the finely-tuned infrastructure of modern life is often shattered for a time.

Power lines are knocked down, snapped by the fall of boughs or whole trees that are ripped apart by the frenzy of Nature. Roads may be blocked, with windrows of debris swept across them by flood waters or bridges washed out. Fires may prevent travel or force evacuation to temporary quarters until the danger of incineration is past. 

Even when such dramatic damage isn’t inflicted, there are many ways in which an emergency or localized disaster can disrupt you ability to get the everyday necessities. A burst water main, besides flooding some streets of a city, can result in whole districts being without potable water for days. A blizzard can trap you at home for a week until the snowplows finally reach your back road, and if the nearest grocery store is ten miles away, walking to it for food is hardly practical.

However, although these events can be disruptive and even highly dangerous to our well-being, it is possible to store up some emergency supplies so that if the worst happens, you will be prepared to survive it and help your family come through the time of disaster relatively unscathed. Emergency supplies can make you considerably safer and more comfortable, and more able to deal with the hazards of the situation in a timely and effective way.

Emergency supplies include several different categories of items, ranging from food with a long shelf life (typically either dried or canned goods, although there are some exceptions) that will keep you supplied with a well-balanced diet for a week or two at need, to water purification and filtration equipment that ensures you are not quaffing dangerous microorganisms or pollutants that will make you sick or give you life-threatening diarrhea at a time when you cannot reach the hospital, to A tool kit, communication equipment, and sources of light or heat.

Emergency supplies include much more than some tinned meat and a good water filter, although both of these things are imperative as well. You should have some way of signaling other people in case rescuers pass nearby – flares, for example, or even a flashlight or mirror that you can use to signal to people at a distance. 

A tool kit that lets you modify your environment a bit – for example, a pry bar to open jammed doors or move fallen timber off something that you need, a handsaw, some cording or rope, and similar hand tools – will let you deal with different situations more efficiently.  A good first aid kit is a vital part of any emergency supplies as well, as is a supply of any medicines that you can’t do without.

Having emergency supplies on hand helps in several ways besides the immediate satisfaction of bodily needs for nourishment, hydration, warmth, and, in the event of injury, some sort of treatment. They also help to free you from the necessity of looking for these basic elements of survival, and give you the opportunity to try to improve your situation in other ways. If you are spending two-thirds of your day trying to find drinkable water, for example, then you cannot use that time to try find a way out of the situation or improve your immediate conditions.

However, if food, water, and basic medical care are easily dealt with thanks to your emergency supplies, then you can confront your situation with confident energy, and not only survive but probably weather the disaster in quite good condition as well.

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