Emergency Preparedness – the stuff to get

June 27th, 2006

Okay, so I’m a total freak. I live in NYC with my husband, have two small kids under 7, and my senior mom lives with us, too. We’ve been here for over 10 years, and we have seen the City stretched to its resource capacity during some pretty big crises. With all these ‘dependents’ in my household, I have decided that emergency preparedness is pretty essential.

There is the normal ‘plan’ that you should have…you know, make sure you know how the school handles emergencies, etc. But the part that I find comforting personally is having the stuff you need *before* the big run on the stores where everything is sold out by the time you get there. Having been through the NYC blackout, an LA earthquake and some other crises, I’ve built a list that I find to be the ‘essentials’ and some stuff that just makes me feel better. I honestly have these things in backpacks under my bed, ready to grab and go without thinking. I bought myself and my friends a kit similar to this one.

My research generally led to having a few core things:

• 2-3 days food rations for each person: they have pretty cool bars that don’t make you thirsty, and have an optimized fat/protein/calorie combo and last for 5 years. People say they taste like lemon cookies.
• Water rations: not just purification tablets, cause who knows how to use those tablets. This is actual water that comes in pouches.
• First aid kit: I decided not to go for the one with a kit for stitches, since I’d probably pass out before being able to stitch something.
• Few things that if you had your head on straight you might remember: pen & paper, whistles for family members, matches, tissues

Part 1 of 4 on emergency preparedness. Continued tomorrow.

- Daphne

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