"I come from Earthquake country" I say, as I explain the fact that I actually have a disaster kit. In California, near the San Andreas fault, you never know when "The Big One" will hit. One minute you could be watching your television (my husband) or reading a romance novel while lying in bed (myself) and then WHAM! Your furniture is possessed, jumping all over your house like it's trying to kill you. Large things are trying to fall over and smash you (my husband), bookcases go flying, you hide (if you can - I never knew I could fit under a standard sized pillow but I managed it), scream, and beg God not to take you yet.
When it's all over, if you aren't injured and your house is intact, you take stock. You have no electricity for sure. Utility companies advise turning off your gas, and in a bad quake you don't have any water either. All you've got are the contents of your DISASTER KIT. You're going to live off that until things get better and things can be restored, or you can go live with someone in an area that wasn't affected.
I survived a 7.1 earthquake. It only knocked out the power for a few hours, and we got a few days off of school. I lost a potted plant, Mom lost some breakables, but that was it. The one thing that really surprised me were the CAR ALARMS. Ugh. Wailing and wailing up and down the street. We didn't lose any utilities other than the electric, so dinner came out of cans (opened with manual openers).
It taught me a valuable lesson. Now we've got Tropical Storm Erin, gaining strength, in the Gulf. It's only about a day away.
I went to Wal-mart this morning. NO ONE was there! No one! I got my prescriptions refilled (no way am I running out of Lithium in a hurricane, uh-uh). I bought a few cans of generic spaghetti rings and the individual-sized applesauces (great for taking my pills). So, tonight, tomorrow, the panic hits the fan. HURRICANE!
I have my canned food. I have my 5-gallon buckets (eight of them). I have a 5-gallon water carrier with a spout (more hygenic than the buckets). I have a solar shower. I'd be very surprised if we lost the gas, it's all underground. Unless flooding gets truly hellish, we'll have clean water too. I expect we might lose electricity, so I've got canned food for the both of us for a couple weeks.
Still don't have my Walton's food yet, it's a good thing it wasn't a cornerstone of my disaster kit. Extra cat food. Battery-operated fans. Hand-crank lantern. Battery-powered TV, lamps, and extra batteries. You get the idea.
I heard a great phrase in Popular Mechanics magazine (they had an article on surviving disasters) : YOYO. You're On Your Own.
No comments:
Post a Comment