Wed 12 Sep 2007
We HAD a Plan
Posted by Liza under Current Affairs, Opinion
Do you have a family emergency plan?
We had one when we were living in DC. Our house was 1.5 miles from the US Capitol — the actual building, not the city — and I would have felt crazy not to have a plan after September 11 and the Anthrax scare. We had supplies and everything. Plastic to seal off the smallest & least windowed room in the house, even!
We vaguely revised the plan when we moved to the DC suburbs, but we haven’t even really discussed it since we moved South. Which is kind of funny since there was an ice storm that stranded me without power for a full weekend the first month I was here.
This Blogher post reminded me that having a plan is a good idea, even if you don’t live in sight of a national security target. And having a plan and a bin full of supplies isn’t an awful idea even if it does gather dust in the garage.
The biggest question, in my mind, is just how much crap should be gathering dust in that bin? Opinions vary.
San Francisco’s list seems long. The Home Safety Council’s list seems doable, but maybe too short. The federal government’s list wisely includes dust masks. On the other hand, can you imagine keeping a dust mask on a toddler?
So here’s my new plan to make a plan:
Every week I will take 1 action (or more) towards emergency or disaster preparedness. Like finding/designating a plastic bin, or adding an item to it. Yes, that means I probably won’t feel totally prepared until about the end of the year, but it also won’t be overwhelming and make me stick my head in the sand because it’s too scary.
Do you have a plan? What are the things you think are most important to include, either in the plan or in the bin-o-supplies?
September 13th, 2007 at 8:24 am
that’s been on my list of “things to do” since the anthrax scare, and i just recently stepped up my mental beratement of myself for not doing it after reading “the road.”
i like the idea of doing at least 1 thing a week. i’d definitely get it done more quickly that way than by putting it off for 6 more years. so thanks, i’m going to do that too.
just a reminder to people with companion animals not to forget including them in the plan!
September 13th, 2007 at 9:59 am
I HAD a kit.
I still have a few things. Bottled water. Some canned goods, a manual can opener (VERY important if you are going to store canned goods), and a flashlight.
I need to restock and add some items.
September 13th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Andy and I frequently talk about having a plan… and we print pages and pages of guides off the internet… and then we stop talking about it, and time passes, and we lose the guides, and we start again. So I, too, like the one-action-a-week approach. I’d have to say that I think having water stocked up is the most important step on the list, but there are so many close seconds… I think that’s what keeps me from doing *anything,* this horrible feeling that having less than everything on the list would spell disaster. Guess I have to get over it, huh?
September 13th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
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