Shelter in Place

Family Preparedness Tips for Staying at Home during a major storm:

If you decide to stay in your home during a hurricane or if local officials recommend sheltering-in-place for other emergencies, be sure to have enough supplies on hand and do the following:

•Review your family disaster plan, and your pet plan.
•Have a disaster supply kit handy.
•Have enough food and water for at least three days, preferably seven, for each person in your household.
•Stock extra supplies such as batteries for flashlights and radios.
•Listen to local radio and television for instructions.
•Stay alert to weather advisories, and know the difference between a weather Watch and a weather Warning.
•If a hurricane is approaching, board up windows and secure lawn furniture, mowers, hanging plants, trash cans and other loose items in the yard.
•Check on your neighbors, particularly the elderly or disabled.
•If a storm hits, gather your family in a safe room. (An interior room with no windows).
•After a storm, watch out for downed power lines.
•If the power is out, do not use candles or open flames as a light source unlessyou KNOW there is no gas leak
•Only use the telephone for important calls so lines will be available for emergency calls.
•Following any disaster, listen to local officials for the all clear.

ref: readync.org

Eastern Seaboard Rocked by 5.9 Earthquake

Bracing for a hurricane we were all surprised when the Eastern seaboard was rocked by a 5.9 earthquake  1:53 pm today.  Felt farther than Toronto and through downtown Altlana GA We were all rocked in North Carolina from the statelines to the coastline.  Stay tuned for more aftershocks and additional information. Largest earthquake on the East Coast since May 31 1897

Felt in DC, NYC, NC, OH, MI, GA, IL , SC

Earthquakes in the last 24 hours:

Scale ~ UTC Time ~ Location

2.8 ~ 18:46:00 ~ VIRGINIA

5.9  ~17:51:04  ~ VIRGINIA

2.8 ~ 15:54:25 ~ ISLAND OF HAWAII, HAWAII

3.7 ~ 15:34:25 ~ KENAI PENINSULA, ALASKA

3.9 ~ 14:11:13 ~ COLORADO

2.6 ~ 12:03:56 ~ COLORADO

3.2 ~ 11:34:56 ~ NORTHERN ALASKA

3.2 ~ 09:37:58 ~  COLORADO

2.5 ~ 09:32:22 ~ COLORADO

2.5 ~ 09:07:35 ~  BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO

3.8 ~ 07:17:59 ~ COLORADO

3.2 ~ 07:01:35 ~ COLORADO

3.5 ~ 06:56:59 ~ COLORADO

5.3 ~ 05:46:19 ~ COLORADO

2.9 ~ 03:11:00 ~ SOUTHERN ALASKA

5.0 ~ 02:48:52 ~ COLORADO


 

Sustainability ~ What's that?

If the whole world goes sideways ~ are you good?
You're prepared.  You have a kit, a plan, a design?
You have achieved: One Week -  One Month - One Season - One Year's worth of preps

Now what? What's your next goal? How about SUSTAINABILITY? If something is sustainable ~ it is capable of being continued with minimal long-term effect on the surrounding environment: such as sustainable agriculture or a sustainable lifestyle.

Can you carry on? If the lights go out forever, or for over a year and your family uses up its preps then what will your family do?  What is your long term plan for your worst case scenario?
What would you do for food? water? other recurring needs/wants after you exhausted your preps?

What skills do you have?
Can you grow food?
Do you have seeds?
Do you know how to save seeds from what you grow?
Can you forage for herbs and food? (I'd get a good book with pictures)
Can you collect water, if so, can you render it safe?
Where would you collect water and in what?
Water sure is heavy how would you move full containers?
Cooking? Power? Heat?

Okay, take a deep breath. Here's the good news. If you've prepped for a year ~ it will be easy to scale into sustainability from there. We have expanded our preps to include 3 yrs on some items, 5 years on others and the skill sets to be sustainable. You have got to be able feed yourself, and your family as well as have the ability to defend yourselves.

One Year Plan

So far this week we've discussed planning and goal setting for One Week, One Month, One Season, and now we're up to ONE YEAR.
You've thought about what it would take to feed you family. You're getting your water together, You're evaluating what you already have on hand, what you need to buy to have a week's worth of food.  You've thought about a month...a season, now let's plan for the entire year.

If you've read earlier posts I have discussed how to calculate how much food you need to prep for depending on your family size.  For picky eaters, remember we're storing what we actually eat so you'll already have those picky eaters (even if that's you) already planned for.  Store only what y'all will eat and eat what you store to keep your food inventory rotating.

You need to make sure you have an honest year worth of food on hand. That's 365 dinners, 365 lunches, 365 breakfasts, 365 snacks for each and every person in your family. WOW that sounds like alot. Because at first  blush that's daunting. If you'll review my postings in July you'll see the math on how to calculate storage by how many different entrees you actually eat/cook. What do I mean when I say an HONEST Year's  supply? Well funny thing about those emergency meals in bucket they are rationing one cup of cooked food per person per day when they calculate the servings.  When you do your own math, for food you really eat in portions your family really eats, you insure your family won't go hungry. You also need to be sure to have EVERYTHING it takes to make those meals on hand from the allspice to the Ziplocs! Remember you are the expert on your family. 

If the whole world goes sideways, and you are relying on your inventory stress is going to set in.  Please remember to stock multivitamins it will help balance your nutrition and manage stress.  Sleep is going to be important as well as compassion and patience  stock up on this too :) Keep calm and carry on.

I have had many folks ask me how much do we stock ~ what are our goals.
Well we have a large family. I will say this ~ our goals are longer than a year.
We have tiered goals 1, 3, and 5 year goals it depends on the item.

You can do this.
Do something today that makes you more prepared than yesterday.

~ You're not alone in this journey ~

One Month & One Season Plan

Yesterday we discussed One Day & One Week Prepping ~ Today we discuss One Month & One Season at a time.

Once you have a solid week of water and food supplies, and you've figured out the finer details of power and cooking we need to expand these to 30 days, or rather one full month of water. breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks for your entire family. 

One Season at a time...  There are some items you'd only use in a particular season, heaters etc...whatever season we're in plan for this season and the next.   now let's add in another consideration... clothing and SHOES I don't mean the cute stuff either.  I mean, gotta get stuff done clothes.  Solid footwear, may need to walk a mile or more shoes.  As adults, our sizes don't change as rapid as children, but keeping your feet dry and warm and blister free is important!   

You need to think about your kids.  Do you have the next size up of shoes? Clothes for the this season, and how about next year this same season? I find thrift stores and consignment sales are great for this.  You'll want the basics for each child: here's a rough guide if you are future buying but keep in mind, rompers and sundresses work well too! it all depends on the age of your child.

5-7 pairs of jeans (long pants)
5-7 long sleeve shirts
7 short sleeve shirts
7 pairs of shorts
1 bathing suit
14+ pairs of socks
14+ pairs of undies
1 pair boots (snow wear/ rain wear)
1 pair of tennis shoes
1 pair of sandals
3 pairs of pj's summer
3 pairs of pj's winter
1 winter coat
1 jacket/midweight coat

Remember diapers, wipes, formula, creams etc...  little ones have lots of considerations!

Hopefully you can do hand-me downs, but maybe not.
It's easier as they get older they don't grow as fast!

Tomorrow: Rounding out ~ One Year Plan

One Week ~ Plan

You need to know what your goals are. What are your goals? If you’re just starting out reading multiple sources, doing your homework you have heard lots of things. For goodness sake it’s enough to drive you nuts. 72 hour kits ,Bug Out Bags, Water storage. Some of those sources are para-military, scare your britches off sky is falling end of the worlders…dooms-dayers. What’s a wife and mother to do? It makes good sense to be prepared for an emergency. SO you look around and lots of folks say get a 72 hour kit, be prepared fro 72 hours.   What’s magic about 72 hours? I’ll tell you. It takes 72 hours for FEMA or the Red Cross to mobilize in a major catastrophe. At least that’s the average. You’re a smart person. What’s an average? Well sometimes FEMA and the Red Cross will be there sooner than 72 hours. Sometimes its longer. 

It took FIVE LONG DAYS for FEMA to get to the Super Dome after Katrina.

Seventy-two hours. Every wonder why they quote that in hours? It’s simple ~ because hours sounds sooner than saying days. Say that a couple of times. DAYS. Three whole long days is just an average. Averages are in the middle right? So that means emergency services could be pretty quick or take seven days. Seven DAYS??? Wait a minute but everyone has these 72 hour kits so that must mean emergency services have to reach us by then! Yeah well I don’t know about you but my Momma didn’t raise a dumb girl, since three days is an average my first concern as well as yours should be getting prepared for an emergency that could last seven days, whether it’s weather or otherwise.

Let’s make us some easy to remember goals:

One Plan

One Week
One Month
One Year

Alrighty then let’s start real easy: ONE DAY

Ok huge thunderstorm and power is out for one full day and one full night. You need the following:
Water: Do you have a gallon of fresh drinkable water for each person in your home?
Power/Lights: Where are the:
Flashlights
Candles
Oil Lamps
LED Lamps
Batteries
Matches
Lighters

Do you have a generator? If so where is it? Can you start it or do you need your husband to do it? You need to learn how to do it yourself. What do you connect to the generator? Your freezer/fridges? One light or two? Which power cords do you use? Where are they kept? Where’s the gas kept and could you fill the generator if you had to?

Food ~ the whole city is without power. So no you can’t run go out to get a meal. So for ONE day you need Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, 2 snacks, then Breakfast and Lunch again for everyone in your home. Could you do that? What about ready to feed formula or

Sanitation ~ ( Let’s assume the worst but hope for the best) Let’s assume no running water for 1 full day. DO you have paper plates, bowels, plastic forks and spoons to go one full day so you can forget about washing dishes for one day? Disposable Baby bottles? Toilet Paper? Paper Towels? What if you had the flu and the power was out for a whole day do you have an extra can of disinfectant? Wipes? Garbage bags?

Entertainment ~ No TV, Internet, Video Games for an entire 24 hours. For some families that’s like asking them to go without air… What are you going to do with the kids for 24 hours? What about yourself? Board games, a deck of cards, Yahtzee, UNO, Pictionary, ISpy go a long way when the powers out.

Safety ~ Whatever makes you feel safe. Lock the doors. Stay vigilant ~ don’t be a victim. I am not going to discuss specific home security choices. That’s not the focus of my site. Be sure you are comfortable with taking care of yourself, your children, your family. I might suggest a big dog,  What? You don't think being able to protect yourself is important?
Then let me direct you here: NPR  

Seasonal Concerns: Can you stay warm for 24 hours without power? Warm bedding? Extra Socks?

If mother nature caught up with you today do you have feminine paper products? Are you low on diapers? Word of caution: Never be slap out of anything especially critical items. With my luck that’s the day every store would be closed because they’re without power!

ONE WEEK Plan:   Ready for some good news? Once you’ve prepared for ONE FULL DAY without power ~ expanding that to ONE WEEK is so much easier! It’s just about quantities. Seven days of food, and water ~ and developing a routine for everything else. You’re kids will love this too because you can skip baths for a week and do “touch up” personal care with wipes. Yippeee!

One Goal

Today you focus on one goal.
Your world goes sideways now what? (Insert your plan here)

We have only one goal today.  Write a plan. One Plan.
We are answering all the pesky what ifs....

What if a hurricane/major storm hit?
What if an earthquake hit?
What if the power was out for a week, month, year?
What if there was a riot?
What if terrorists (or anything else) disabled our infrastructure?
What if there was a pandemic?
What if the grocery stores had no food?
What if  inflation rose to the point you couldn't afford gas? bread?
What if there was a zombie apocalypse? The CDC has a point, if you can survive a zombie apocalypse you can survive anything!

Today's goal ~ think about it what would you need or want to have to keep you and your family safe, secure, fed?

Today: One Plan

Tomorrow: One Week
Wednesday:  One Month
Thursday: One Year
Friday: Sustainability