Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Being Prepared

I'm  the kind of person who has to be prepared for EVERYTHING.  When I was younger I had tons of stuff in my car, just in case.  I carried backpacks with all my books to all my college classes in case I needed to use them.  As I have matured, and married a minimalist (at some things) I am improving my need to be prepared for every possible eventuality all the time.  I only take things on outing with the kids that there is a 10% chance I will need.  For example: I no longer take 3 extra outfits to the grocery store.  

Since our marriage we have only given a half-hearted effort to ensure we were totally prepared for emergencies and had complete food storage for one year.  On Sunday, there was a tornado in our area.  It was visible from our front yard, but was about 2 miles away.  The funny part was the sky was blue over our house, and the leaves were barely rustling.  Baseball size hail was seen 5 or 6 miles away, and we got nothing!  For more information and other pictures check out The Wealth of Home, or her friend's blog.

B.A.R.'s friend called to tell us to bolt for the basement because of the tornado, which we did.  Suddenly, I was surprised at how prepared we were despite our lack of effort.  Until then, we hadn't been watching the news (the sun was shining and the wind was hardly blowing), but when we got downstairs I realized that we have a small TV, a phone, a box of toys for Tiger, all of our food storage, all of our camping supplies (except the stove and fuel), 5 gallons of water, all the kids clothes not currently in use, the extra chairs, a small fridge with soda, a large chest freezer with food, our 72 hour kits, and for 1 day only: Blanket's favorite bouncy chair.  

It seems that my old instincts have served us well. While we weren't down there for very long, and it isn't likely that a serious tornado will have us in our basement more than once every few years, it is nice to know that we were prepared for an emergency even if it only lasted 20 minutes.

1 comment:

Jenny said...

Glad you are prepared. I tend to be that way, too. We never went in the basement during the tornado because, honestly, we didn't know there was one anywhere close until after it had disappated. And we didn't go down as a precaution because there was nowhere to be--just a dirty and splintery wood floor. Down there I have all my food storage and camping stuff, plus emergency stuff like flashlights and a weather radio. I think I'll put some lawn chairs down there too. Then next time we can just hang out down there if there's a tornado warning.