BillLists checklist
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It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting to assembly items for your disaster kit or already have many items gathered, you need a list to help you cover the basics. To better help everyone prepare, I have included a link to my survival gear checklist. This is a PDF file that can be downloaded, printed and shared as needed.
This checklist is not all inclusive but it does make a great starting point. As you browse through the items on the list, think about how these items may or may not be applicable for your specific situation. Use these items as a suggestion and consider how they, or something like them might be useful to you, your family or friends. More
BillHome Preparedness, Lists checklist, contacts, home, planning
Planning for a natural disaster can save your life and family. Having the proper supplies can go a long way to minimize your vulnerability during a disaster. One of the most overlooked aspect is a family disaster plan.
It’s important to meet as a family and discuss the types of disasters that are most likely to affect you and your family. This basic understanding can go a long way to minimize anxiety for family members should they be faced with a crisis situation.
Planning For Survival – Meeting Place
It’s possible that during a disaster, family members may not be together. For this reason it is important to have a meeting place that can be used as a gathering point should they not be able to get home.
When selecting a place, pick one just outside you home that could be used in the event of a fire, gas leak or other situation that prevents you from being inside your home. This will make it easier to find everyone without having to go around your property to find other members.
Plan a secondary location outside your neighborhood that can be used in the event that your neighborhood is not accessible. During some types of disasters, it might not be possible to travel to the primary meeting place due to fallen trees, downed power lines or road closures.
Communication During a Disaster
As mentioned before, it is likely that not every member of your family will be together when disaster strikes. This is the reason a communication plan is an important part of your family disaster planning. You should designate a friend or family contact that does not live in your immediate area that can be the central communication point. It has been said that it may be easier to contact someone long distance than it will be to make a local call in an affected area.
The number for this person should be included on everyone’s cell phone and they should be reminded of this primary contact. You should also include this number on your survival gear checklist so it is available in the event your cell phone is not working. As a secondary method, consider texting between family members. Many times, a text message can make it through a network when a voice call fails.
Evacuation Routes for Survival
Even if you are home and disaster strikes, you may be forced to evacuate. If you had to leave your home, do you have an alternate location you could use? Consider where you could go if you had to leave and how you would get there. The quickest route might be a highway, but it could be gridlocked with others trying to evacuate as well.
Consider alternate routes that might be less congested and allow more options should you have to modify your plans. The alternate routes are just like the items we keep on hand for survival. They might not be as good as the original, but they do give us options and flexibility. This type of planning reduces our vulnerability to a disaster and is the whole idea behind survival planning.
Pet Disaster Plan
If you have pets, you need to consider what you would do with them during a survival situation. Specifically, I am asking you to consider what you would do if you had to evacuate. Could you take them with you in your vehicle along with your other supplies and family members? If you are planning to stay at the closest shelter, keep in mind that many of these operations do not allow for pets.
I can’t tell you exactly what to do in this situation, you need to think about your options and those situations you are most likely to encounter. I can tell you that if you have pets, it is your responsibility to consider options for them.
Having a survival list and supplies is a good practice, but having a plan for handling potential situations will save you and your family a lot of time if you are ever faced with a disaster situation. Take the time to empower all family members with the information they may need if you aren’t around to guide them.
BillFood Storage, Items food, mre, rations
When is comes to preparing for survival, water is one of the most significant items. After water, shelter and food become a major concern. Since most of us will be at our home during a disaster, we probably have food in the pantry and fridge that we could use for a few days. But what if you had to leave your home, could you bring it along?
Looking in my pantry right now, there are various types of canned goods, primarily fruit, vegetables and some pasta / spaghetti type meals. Many of these items are heavy, bulky and need to be cooked. If I had to leave on short notice, gathering these items and a way to cook them could be difficult since power might not be available.
So, what are my options for light-weight, transportable food that requires little preparation? The options can include, but aren’t restricted to; MREs, freeze-dried meals and ration bars. There are good points and bad points to all of these options. There is not “one” perfect option since we can’t know the exact situation we will find ourselves in during a disaster. More
BillDisaster News, Lists checklist, home, planning
Planning is the key to preparing for survival during a disaster. This is one of the reasons I developed my survival gear checklist which is available on this site for download.
Although we prepare as individuals, we can learn some important lessons from the people that plan for our communities when it comes to disasters. An example of this is in a recent article that I found on the web, Tuscaloosa Chief Offers Key Tips When Facing a Natural Disaster.
The Tuscaloosa Fire Chief Alan Martin, presented several tips to various community agencies to help better prepare them for natural disasters. Although these were aimed at emergency personnel, I thought that several of the items really apply to us as individuals as well. More
BillHome Preparedness, Lists contacts, disaster, list, planning
Planning is the best way to reduce our vulnerability to a natural disaster. Being prepared allows us more options in dealing with the situations we will find ourselves in after an event.
You may have already downloaded my survival gear checklist from a previous post, and noticed that there is a large space at the top for important phone numbers. This is a great place to add the phone number of family members, utility companies and insurance agents.
You may not think that this is important since your cell phone has all the numbers in it, but your cell phone could be destroyed, lost or just have a dead battery. During a power failure, you might not have the option of changing a dead cell phone. More
BillLists disaster, list, planning
There are numerous types of disasters. This introduction of disasters helps to explain that some are natural and others are man-made. Based on the items shown below, it is obvious that not all of these events will effect every person. However, looking through the various disaster types you will probably find that there are at least a couple that could possible affect you at some point.
Although I’ve tried to break this list into two categories, a few can fall into both categories. For example, a dam failure could be man-made due to the construction, but it could also be caused by a flooding event. In this case, the flooding event might ultimately cause the failure of the dam. More
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