Food Storage and Emergency Preparedness...It is not just about disasters!
Many times I think when we think about food storage and emergency preparedness supplies we only think about being prepared for a disaster. But is it much more than that!
"Please don't get hyper-focused on natural disasters. The most common disaster you will ever face is when you or your spouse loses a job and you don't have food in the cupboard to get you through those transitional months." (Valerie Albrechtsen, "Prepared LDS Family")
Throughout our married life and while raising a large family we relied on our food storage and emergency supplies for various reasons: 1. unexpected expensive car repairs; 2. being on disability for several months due to a work injury; 3. extra medical bills; 4. loss of income.
Our food storage was a great blessing during these "transitional" times. Life can be overwhelming at times and come with challenges. Preparedness brings peace!
Each of us needs to pray for guidance from our Heavenly Father as we care for our families. He is always there to help us.
Wow! Four years and counting...
I can hardly believe it has been four years since I started this emergency preparedness blog. It has been exciting to see it spread all over the world and to receive comments from so many of you how it has helped you become better prepared. I am also grateful for your ideas and experiences. I am grateful for the inspiration I have received from my Heavenly Father. Each week he inspires me with an idea he gives methrough the Holy Ghost, by something someone says, by reading something or by seeing something. I hope you take the contents of each week's blog posting and weekly assignments and use them to bless you and your family. Peace really does come from being prepared both spiritually and temporally. May you continue to enjoy each week's blog posting, weekly assignment and emergency preparedness ideas. It is a pleasure to serve you and share my forty years of experiences regarding food storage and emergency preparedness.
Weekly Assignment: 72 Hour Individual Emergency Stressor Kit
What is a Stressor Kit? A Stressor Kit is a kit that will help you and your family members during a disaster or stressful situation. If provides things to do. There are 10 items in this kit. We will add one or two items each week.
This week add the following:
1) 5-in-1 Survival Whistle (or any whistle): Why do you need a whistle? If you are buried or lost you can blow the whistle, or flash the signal mirror (if you have light to reflect from), longer than you can shout for help. It is also heard further. These are on sale now at emergencyessentials.com or beprepared.com for $1.50 each. Regular price $2.95. Buy 10 for $1.30 each or 50 for $1.20 each. I love this 5-in-1 whistle because it gives you five different emergency helpers. Each survival whistle features:
2) List of family contact names and phone numbers, especially someone out of state. Put a copy in each family member's Stressor Kit.
Important Note: Last week I blogged about our children's school emergency preparedness plan. I mentioned how each classroom has a large emergency trash can with each student's own 72 Hour Individual Emergency Preparedness Kit put together by their parents. I forgot to mention it is a good idea to also have a change of underwear, socks and pants (which need to be changed each year due to the child's growth). Many times in an emergency or stressful situation, younger children wet themselves. If for some reason they get their feet wet, wade in water, it is also a good idea to have a dry pair of sock to protect them from illness.
Emergency Preparedness Ideas:
How many of us keep a small fire extinguisher in our kitchen and one in each of our cars? Why is it important? Many times I hear of fires in the kitchen, especially grease fires. Click here to learn about how to put out a grease fire in your kitchen and the type of fire extinguisher you should have.
Most of us have seen or heard about a car on fire along the road side. If they had kept a fire extinguisher in their trunk they may have been able to avoid extensive damage. They cost a little less than $20 at WalMart and other stores.
Comments: All your comments, ideas, suggestions and experiences are welcome! We all learn from each other. Thank you for your comments.
I wanted to share the experience we had with our fire extinguisher, we kept it very much visible so in case of a fire we could see it even if we didn't think about it, seeing it it would promp us to use it, unfortunately our grand kids having a basic idea how to use it, they got a whole of it, run to one of my kids room and activated it making a whole mess, we were lucky they closed the door before they activated it otherwise the whole house could have ended up a whole mess, if anybody has any ideas how to prevent this from happening again please share them, thanks
ReplyDeleteWhen you have a fire extinguisher in your home or car it is important to teach your children what it is and how and only when to use it. If you have small children please keep it out of their reach. It might be a good idea to a small one and show the family how to use it. I think you can go to your local fire department and they will show your family. Also, make sure you check it yearly to make sure it is charged. The fire department can also tell you this. The Ark
DeleteJust wanted to give cudos to sister Cuppett and say thank you so much for the time you make and take each week to present this extremely valuble information to us. We are making a special family day to work on our kits and get everything organized in the cars too. I thank you so much for the whistles as well. They are truly very useful being there are so many different things we can do with them. Love you. Sister Craig
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