National Preparedness Month #2

OK, you've had a day to think about what you may need to be prepared for in your part of the world. Now add a few things to that, like protracted illness for you or a loved one, an accident that requires time off from work, or even worse, loss of your livelihood.


Hopefully by now you have some general concept of what you need to have on hand to make it through a few days where you live. So what does it take to start getting organized in your mind to actually be physically prepared?

You can go to websites and look up lists of stuff that people have developed as guides to what you should have on hand in a kit for use in emergencies. FEMA has one or two, other sites do as well. Google something like 'preparedness lists.' You are in the phase of starting to identify your baseline, or the specific point from which you will depart in your preparedness month journey.

Unless you are in Hurricane Earl's path, don't go hog-wild right now. Just start looking around your home to see what you have on hand already. If you have an unused storage container, like a medium-sized sterlite or rubbermaid one, remind yourself where it is and what's in it now. This is the time when you are starting to see where you are and where you need to be, so it requires a bit of thought.

I know you already have a lot on your plate, so for now just think about the 'what-if's' and look around to see what you have that would be useful if 'what-if' happens. Start getting accustomed to the fact that it could happen to you and yours. Remember the old phrase 'it always happens to the other guy'? It is sobering to reflect that to 5 billion people, you ARE the other guy.