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.”

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

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.

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