I don’t live in a hurricane/tornado/earthquake/any other extreme weather zone but since reading **Alas, Babylon ** the other day I’ve thought about getting some emergency supplies just in case *something * happens.
Do you have emergency supplies in your home, food, water, candles/lamps, first aid etc?
Yes.
First aid kit, water, food, candles, all that stuff.
As an Ex-EMT I have a rather elaborate first aid kit. The canned food in my cabinets should last me at least a week or two. Candles and matches…yup. Water I would have to get creative on, I rarely have much stored water. Don’t forget to stock up on ammo to repel your less well prepared neighbors when they come for your supplies, or you, since you are made of meat.
Yes: the Ms. is a fanatic about having necessities around, especially since we live in earthquake country. I also have an RV with a generator and I never put it away for the winter without topping off the fuel tank.
I feel I am pretty well prepared but it’s not really by design as much as happenstance.
My hubby is the kind who likes to keep the pantry and freezers stocked full at all times. I don’t really know where he gets this from, but I gave up trying to change him years ago, I just go with the flow. Tons of pastas and canned foods. I happen to like burning candles so I always have a large supply of those.
We owned a cube freezer when we bought our house which had a side by side fridge freezer combo in the kitchen. That just meant he could store up more stuff. I can’t complain as he’s forever finding a great deal on chickens or roasts and filling up the freezer.
We buy rice in a 20 kilo sack, same for flour, so we’d do alright. Truth is we could live for months if we had to, though I’m sure I’d miss fresh foods.
We have a woodstove so we’d be okay if the heat went out, and the yard has berries, cherries, peaches, grapes and mulberries. Our house even has an old cistern that could be pressed into use in a pinch.
Whenever they do the rundown, like prior to Y2K, we usually have all the things required with the exception of six months of some meds, (not life threatening). Not really by design though, as I said.
I have put a rather extensive emergency kit in the car; warm sweaters, blanket, power bars, water, candles, matches, flashlight etc.
Funny thing is: fire no, flood no, tornado no. Zombies? Yes! On a serious note the only really smart and oraganized thing i have is a fireproof lock box with my passport, SS Card, extra id. Credit Cards and 2 grand in cash. With all of my titles and important papers. Along with a loaded glock.
We’ve got matches and candles, a fire extinguisher and fire alarms, blankets and a fireplace (with firewood stacked outside), and flashlights in the house. On the off-chance a tornado passed through, we’ve got enough room in our basement to stand well away from the windows and hunker down.
Nice kit for home and car. I did find how long it would take one person to use a gross of TP rolls. I was really prepaired for Y2K :smack:
Somewhat. I have a lot of camping gear and guns. With an urban deer population of 300+, we could eat well for a couple of weeks. I’m a former EMT and trained in wilderness medicine.
The nice thing about living in Montana/a small city is that we mostly know each other. My ex-MIL would welcome me to her house with a fireplace, we could keep my girlfriend’s horses in the back yard. People here still know how to hunt and can vegetables. It would be going back to living like my great-grandparents did.
Other than a kit for if I get stuck driving in winter, no.
I’m prepared for the most common stuff to happen here - a hurricane, maybe an ice storm. I’m ready to last several days without power or clean water. I’m not ready for a zombie plague, though - I keep meaning to get a car kit together or something in case we had to leave in a hurry for some reason, but I never have. I did get around to getting a second cat carrier in case we’d need to evacuate with the animals. I keep meaning to order some of those whatchamacallit thyroid tablets that you take for fallout, because they’re cheap insurance, but I’ve never done that either. So essentially, I’m ready to shelter in place for a week but no longer.
We’re pretty well prepared. We have water, long-burning candles, oil lamps, canned food, semi-automatic rifles, and lots of ammo.
and? How long did it take?
Not prepared at all. Can’t really imagine any scenarios where I would need it. Perhaps a fireproof box with important papers would be a good idea though.
I’ve got an HF radio (ALE embedded) with an autotuner & transportable antenna. You people with food are going to need to find where the other survivors are holed up against the zombies/Soviets/Skynet/Matrix*. I think a share of the fresh H2O and shelf-stables is a fair price.
And before you go killing me with your stockpiled guns and steal my transceiver…Do you really know how to use that thing? Have you ever seen an RF burn? You don’t know the pilot channel frequencies, do you? Choose wisely and we can all defeat the *zombies/S/S/M.
Fire: smoke filter hoods, 2nd floor escape ladders, ABC extinguisher in garage, kitchen extinguisher in pantry, fire-proof safe, smoke detectors (1 networked to alarm company) designated muster point at neighbor’s house
- check
tornado: safe room under stairs in basement, hand-cranked radio, few days food & drinks- check.
flood / ground infiltration: sump pump, backup immersion pump, flood sensor networked to alarm company.
-check
home invasion / burglary / security emergency: high security locks, video door-phone, alarm system w. panic button, saferoom w. land-line & wireless communications for 911 in master BR , firearms with appropriate ammo & hearing protection for everyone.
-check
car emergency: blankets, jumper cables, flares / triangles, duct-tape, survival candles, maglight, tarp, survival candles, arctic -rated hat & gloves in winter
-check
prolonged power outage in winter: natural gas BBQ, wood-burning fireplace, supply of firewood.
-check
medical emergency: kit in car w. supplies to handle fractures & sprains, large-ish bleeding.
full range of OTC meds including Benadryl for allergies, handy MD spouse, but mostly phone 911 & paramedics.
-check.
Our biggest remaining exposures right now are a lack of a portable generator, in case there is flooding while power is out, or food preservation in longer outages in the summer, and a shotgun, for longer range fire / bigger critters. I would also like to put security film on the glass in the windows, but that would void the warranty. Power here in Calgary has been quite reliable, as most of the infrastructure is underground, unlike Montreal. The shotgun is not really warranted right now due to the lower threat level, but the paperwork is in order to get one quick if the need arises.
We also don’t have a “bug out bag” prepared for rapid evacuation, as there are no risk factors in our area that would mandate a rapid evacuation.
Awright, what’d I miss?
I can’t really think of any too likely scenarios either but I still would like to be prepared.
We’re pretty set.
Water, food, manual can openers, dog food, medications, cash, lots of first aid stuff, a baseball bat, a grocery store a few blocks away, blankets, a crank radio, lots of batteries, flashlights (battery-powered and Faraday), plus easy-to-grab legal docs.
Plus my brother is ex-Special Forces and he has indicated that we will be his first stop before he checks on the rest of the world. His emergency bin includes climbing rigs, massive amounts of water and MREs and tons of medical equipment, including IVs and morphine.
Yep. Not only do we have all the standard supplies (first aid kit(s), fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, hand cranked flashlights, battery operated television/radio, wood burning fireplace, gas canister-style bbq, camping gear out the wazoo, candles, matches, lighters, blankets, car emergency kits, etc.), but we’ve been trained (and re-trained and certified and re-certified and tested and tested and tested some more) in 3 different cities’ CERT programs for: [ul][li]Disaster Preparedness[/li][li]Disaster Fire Suppression[/li][li]Disaster Medical Operations (including triage and both adult and infant CPR)[/li][li]Light Search & Rescue Operations[/li][li]Disaster Psychology[/ul] Almost every fire department in the nation has a CERT program, and I highly, highly recommend it to everyone. [/li][QUOTE=drachillix]
Water I would have to get creative on, I rarely have much stored water.
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You probably have about 40 or 50 gallons of it in your water heater.
I live in the English countryside:
- several hundred feet above sea level
- no recorded hurricanes, earthquakes or tornadoes within 100 miles
- a very low crime rate
So I’ve got a smoke detector, candles + matches and a fireproof box.
(The Cuban Missile crisis was a bad moment, but otherwise nothing to worry about.)