Ready

Are You Ready For An Emergency?

Are you ready for an emergency? It may be a minor disaster or an unforeseen emergency in your neighborhood. You may have to be evacuated. Are you prepared to leave your home and go to a shelter if you get a knock on your door from local authorities telling you that you MUST leave your home?

We really need to think about what we may want to grab and take with us. My top priority would be the important documents I have stored in a binder in a very secure place. You may know, I designed a binder with FREE printable pages.

I have included instructions detailing what you may want to add to your binder, as well. One would be pictures of our family members to be enclosed in the binder in case we get separated from our loved ones. If you can get fingerprints of your loved ones, that would be great too!

We will keep one picture and post the other picture on a wall so we can hopefully be reunited ASAP.  Here is the download: Food Storage Moms FREE Printable Emergency Binder Download

Please be patient for it to load, and the PDF document should show up on your computer on the bottom left side of your laptop or computer monitor. Once the document finishes loading it will be ready to click and print. I prefer printing it on cardstock, and it’s actually in color if you want to print with a color printer.

Items To Grab If You Have To Evacuate

Grab and Take Items

72-Hour Kits

Pet 72-Hour Kit

Water

Food

Prescriptions

Extra Glasses/Sunglasses

Emergency Binder

Cash

Sentimental Items

Valuables

You can print this on cardstock and tape it to your door where you would leave to evacuate. Grab and Take Items Checklist

10% Of The People In Utah Are Prepared

Here’s the deal, I have heard that only 10% of the people in Utah are prepared for a disaster or unforeseen emergency. This really bothers me because I can’t provide for my entire street or neighborhood. I have this percentage based on real numbers from churches, emergency preparedness centers, and neighborhoods where I have taught classes about this very topic in Utah.

I’ll bet the percentage of unprepared families is even lower in many other locations, particularly the highly concentrated urban centers. I hear comments like, “I don’t know where to start.” Or, “I don’t have the money to buy groceries, let alone emergency food and supplies.”

Read More of My Articles  How To Build A Power Outage Kit

No Power For Five Days

I have also heard people ask, “What’s the big deal? We have heard we need to be prepared for the last thirty-plus years and nothing has happened.” Well, this may be true in some areas of the country, but I get emails all the time asking me what to do. They include comments such as this one “Our neighborhood has been without power for five days now, what would you suggest for cooking, etc?”

These are real people and the emails show me the fear felt by the families who are concerned based on what’s going on around them. My heart aches for them because maybe they have never had a minor or major power outage, EVER. But they do now! My point is this, we need to be prepared BEFORE we need to be prepared. It’s a fact. If you turn on the TV and listen to the news, hear it on the radio, or look on Facebook, there are emerging issues in numerous places in the USA and throughout the world.

Ready For An Emergency

I’m sure you have seen my articles on many emergency preparedness topics. I believe sometimes we have to see the comments about the stuff I have listed below again and again before it sinks in enough to take some action.

If even one family gets prepared in the next week, I have accomplished what I have tried to do, inform the world one family at a time. Let’s hope at least 15% of your neighborhood is prepared, that would beat the number of 10% in Utah being prepared for disasters, whoever they may be.

Are You Ready

Make An Evacuation Plan

Talk with your family and make a plan for meeting up after an evacuation or disaster, if that should occur. Please make more than one or two choices to meet in case roads are damaged and you are driving a carpool or kids to dance lessons.

Store Water and Food

Store water and food for at least two to three weeks minimum in case you will be homebound because of a major epidemic or disaster.

Decide on one or two choices of cooking devices that you could use to boil water or cook a hot meal. Be sure and have the appropriate fuel stored that is required to go with the stoves you plan to use. This is one of my favorites: Butane Stove and Butane Fuel

Read More of My Articles  Disaster Organizations: Can You Depend On Them?

Get Supplies Now

Order some N-95 masks to add to your first aid kit. If you don’t have a first aid kit, just think about what will happen if the pharmacies are closed due to power outages. Do you have cough syrups, Tylenol, or whatever OTC products you would like if you were unable to get them anywhere due to all stores being closed or inventory is sold out? It will happen, trust me. It has happened in many cities and states this year already, just like in past years. Here’s my first aid kit that I recommend at the very least to have on hand: First Aid Kit For Survival

Keep Up On Laundry

Keep up on your laundry and store extra laundry detergent should you need to wash your clothes by hand. If we lose power we do not want to do a week’s worth of wash in an emergency washer. You’ve probably seen my emergency washing machine with 6-gallon buckets and a Gamma lid as a mobile washer: Mobile Washer

Have you been looking for an emergency washer that can do blue jeans and bed sheets? This one can. I have been washing my clothes for a week with this gem, and it rocks! It’s very sturdy and affordable. It’s about time someone made a really good portable washing machine that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. I had thought about buying a wringer, that’s on hold for now. Lavario Emergency Washer

Emergency Portable Toilet

The emergency toilet on the left is a 5-gallon bucket and the one on the right is a 6-gallon bucket.

Ready

I would make sure you have a portable toilet because if the power goes out the sewer lines may not work. I prefer six-gallon buckets so you don’t have to squat down as far: Six-Gallon Buckets Split buckets with neighbors and save the Gamma Lids for other buckets.

Flashlights and HeadLamps

Please get some good flashlights and store extra batteries, unless you plan to use solar flashlights. Headlamps are awesome as well. Goal Zero Solar

Final Word

Keep in mind this list has just the bare necessities we need should a disaster hit. But we need to encourage our neighbors to prepare for the unexpected too. If your neighbors are approachable have some get-togethers and talk about what you would do as a team of neighbors working together. Then discuss what each could bring to the table if it takes the government or other emergency agencies a week or a month to arrive with help. We must take care of ourselves because we are responsible for OUR family to survive disasters.

My favorite things:

FEMA Website

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16 Comments

  1. Upset bout not using their preparations are they?
    I’ve had a fire extinguisher for decades, I’ve had life insurance for decades, I’ve not used my car insurance in years and my smoke detector has never gone off. I’m not upset about not using any of those preparations so I’m not real upset bout not using others.
    Folks need to be real careful what they wish for. I’ve been a few places and done a few things and it’s not what many think it is.
    It ain’t gonna happen under perfect conditions either. When IT happens someone is gonna be in the hospital, someone’s gonna be in an elevator, on vacation, with the flu, with a broke down vehicle or dressed up in suit n high heels Sunday best. Don’t believe me then ask yourself where you were when 9-11 went down?

    1. Hi Matt:

      I don’t know why your post went to my email, since this is the first I posted today. I love having insurance and not needing it. I love being prepared and not needing it too.

  2. I think 1/2% of the people living in New York are prepared. The only thing I don’t have is an evacuation plan, but I will be working on that. In the city if you don’t have a car you are going nowhere fast, so it may be better to stay put especially if you have to depend on public transportation and it’s not working. Wow, a lot of things to think about.

    1. Hi Mildred, it’s amazing how many people are not prepared for the unexpected. Yes, if we have a grid down public transportation will not work. We really do have to have a plan for evacuations. Life will be different for sure. Linda

  3. Linda, I wonder how many of the people in Nebraska, Iowa, were wishing they had organized stuff for evacuating? A childhood friend’s little sis was just evacuated. They’d heard warnings, figured they’d be ok. Um, til the door knock by authorities. 2 hours notice to get out with what they could carry easily, be taken by boat, if necessary. They were able to drive out but many neighbors couldn’t, took too long to gather stuff, so were brought out by boat. From aeriel footage she found, it only took another 2 hrs before her one story home was halfway filled with water. A lot of preppers only worry about that Thing: you know, Shtf, teotawki, collapse of economy/govt, etc. Nope, prepping is More Valuable for just our individual families and situations.

    1. Hi Wendy, oh I’m so glad you mentioned Nebraska. I saw several pictures and I’m sick for those involved. Talk about flooding!! Oh my gosh! I will continue to write about being prepared for the unexpected. You are so right it’s not just for the SHTF, or whatever. It’s for ALL the times we least expect a disaster or unforeseen emergency. Can you imagine looking at your home filled halfway with water? My heart aches for those families. Linda

  4. With so much going on in the world today, people are foolish not to be prepared. I am happy to say, we finally have the propane gas stove I’ve always wanted, and thanks to my daughter and son in law, we also have 200 gallons of propane and plan to order 200 more next month. I can cook and can if I lose power ! (I could have cooked before, but not sure if I could have continued to can on the alternative methods). My mom and I went to Costco yesterday and I stocked up on the pepper gravy and pancake mix as I was getting low on both. I also bought some more bottled water. We , as a family discussed the situation in Houston. (I live closer to Dallas than Houston). I was a bit surprised when my 83 year old mother asked what they meant by ‘shelter in place’. I told her that because there was Benzene in the air, they should not go outside unless they had an emergency,and should use a mask or respirator if they did go outside.I also told her that is why we have bottled water (and food) stored so we would not have to worry if the tap water became contaminated. I am not sure how the chemical would affect a person, but I would guess it would be bad on the lungs. We do not live in an area where flooding is a threat. But, a few years ago, a chemical plant exploded about 12 miles away and then some time later another one exploded in the city of West, Texas.So we have masks with respirators for everyone ,including my 2 year old grand daughter. (my son also bought gas masks for all of us a few years ago) . I have looked into buying a few hazmat suits . Other than online, I’m not sure where to get them. I don’t think I would be able to get one for me as I am quite over weight for my size. (I’m working on that as well). I have disposable gloves in several sizes and some disposable gowns (covers ?) like the hospitals use. Being prepared is more than just food ,water, shelter and skills in my opinion. We are so blessed to have someone like you to help guide us and teach us . And to remind us that there are good people out there, we just have to look around to find them sometimes. May God Bless and keep you my friend

    1. Hi Judy, I love how your family is so prepared, one item at a time. It’s good news about the propane stove and propane storage. You are rocking with preparedness, girlfriend. We can sleep at night when we are prepared. Good job! P.S. I’m not getting hazmat outfits. I have seen people get them, I more concerned with the masks, and I have a LOT of them. Linda

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