Emergency Preparedness, Food Storage and Monthly Assignments (Week of September 27th)

Hi Torrance Stake Family, Carson Ward Family, Family and Friends,

It's a Life Style . . .

Just as diet is a life style, just as exercise is a life style, just as daily prayer and scripture reading is a life style, so should emergency preparedness and food storage be a life style. Making everyday awareness of being prepared should be a part of your life. As we go about our day, and shopping, we should be aware of the things we need for our food storage and emergency preparedness. We should continually be adding and rotating our food storage and adding to our emergency supplies. It is not just a one time thing, but a life time of doing. Doing this brings peace of mind and knowing you are working towards your goals of being prepared. Make it a daily thing, not just a weekly, monthly or yearly thing. 

Bi-Stake Emergency Preparedness Fair
 (Torrance North Stake and Torrance Stake)

Saturday, October 24, 2015

9:00 AM to 1:00 PM

2000 W. Artesia Blvd., Torrance, California USA

(Near the 110 Freeway and the 91 Freeway)

40+ booths on emergency preparedness, food storage, water storage and purification, 72 Hour Pack, emergency cooking, emergency lighting and heating, financial preparedness, first-aid, sanitation, sheltering in place, cooking with wheat and bread making, child emergency ID cards and finger printing, camping skills, spiritual preparedness, health and fitness preparedness, utility emergencies, earthquake preparedness, emergency pet care, food gardening, insurance preparedness, home safety and security, communications, community agencies, activities for children and the whole family and much much more. 

You do not want to miss this event! 

September Monthly Assignments

Last week! 

 

Food Storage: Drinks 

This month we are focusing on adding all types of drinks to our 

short storage and long storage food storage. 

Drinks: Fruit juices (bottles, canned, cartons, dehydrated/freeze-dried), lemonade mix, milk (dehydrated/freeze-dried), hot chocolate mix, apple cider mix, etc.. What ever type of drinks your family will drink. Do not store something they will not drink, a waste of your money. Fruit juices in bottles, cans and cartons do not usually last as long, about a year. Make sure you keep on top of the expiration dates and rotate before they expire. Box powdered milk from the grocery store usually only last about 6 months. Rotate them as needed. Use the milk so your family will be accustomed to drinking it, use while cooking and where milk is call for in recipes. There are long term storage dehydrated/freeze-dried milks that are whole milk, watch the expiration dates on these, they may not store 20+ years, it may only be 7-10 years.

How much to store: Determine how much your family drinks, each variety, in a month, multiply that by the number of months you have set your food storage goal. Each time you go grocery shopping or find the types of drinks you are storing on sale purchase them and add them to your food storage. Always be on the look out and aware of sales throughout the year.

Where to store: In a cool, dry, dark place like your pantry or a closet. Never in the garage, to hot!

Remember: Rotation, Rotation, Rotation is the success of any food storage. 

Emergency Supplies: 
             72 Hour Emergency Family Bag

You can use a sports bag or a backpack

  

 The 72 Hour Emergency Family Bag is an important part of your 

72 Hour Individual Emergency Backpacks. 

This bag contains items you might need during the emergency that you cannot get into your 72 Hour Individual Emergency Backpacks. Click here to see what items to add to this bag. You can also review this list on the right side of this blog under "Postings". Some items can get purchased at discount stores (99 Cent Store, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, etc.), some online and some at department and sporting goods stores, some you may have around the house.

Emergency Preparedness Ideas

Free Water . . . 

How do I get free water? 

Each year we have a rainy season. Each year water flows off our house and garage roof tops. Why not capture the water in rain barrels? It's free!  If you have rain gutters all you need to do is redirect the down drain into a water barrel. If you do not have rain gutters you might consider adding them or find another way to capture the water running off your roof. This water can be filtered through your Seycehelle water filtration pumps and/or bottles, or another type of water filtration system, and stored in large water barrels for future use. It can be used for things like watering in dry times, watering your vegetable and flower gardens, washing your closes in a disaster or so many other way.
 
Note: To treat the water in  water barrels, not the trash can rain barrels, for long storage, add 1/4 cup of bleach to a 50-55 gallon water barrel. Cover with an extra large black trash bag and then wrap the water barrels in a large plastic tarp. This will keep the water for several years. Keeping the heat off the water barrels insures less like for the water to get algae or become contaminated sooner.

To see more about storing water, filtering water and to watch a video on making a rain barrel click here. Or go to the posting on the right of this blog under "Postings" and click on the posting titled "Water Storage and Water Barrels".   

  Comments and Questions: Please share your comments and questions, they are most appreciated. We all learn from each others experiences and knowledge. Please share them below or email me at theark.carsonward@gmail.com. I will answer your questions on my next blog posting. Thank you for your comments and questions. Note: If you are having a hard time leaving a comment try another server like Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome.