#38 - My Disaster Kit blog

I began preparing for disasters in preparation for the Y2K scare. The 9/11 attack, anthrax scare, Indonesian tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina devastation just reinforced my desire to prepare for unexpected disasters. I've put together small kits for short-term personal use, "bug-out" bags designed to keep us going for 72 hours outside the home, car kits to provide basic needs if we got stuck in the vehicles with help late in coming, shelter-in-place gear in case we get stuck in our house for a few weeks, and enough camping gear bundled up in one spot that I could grab if we needed to get way out of town for a little while. At least in theory I have. I have done lots of research and made lots of lists about what I want and need in these kits. They are not all complete though. I wonder if they'll ever be complete enough.

The problem with preparing for the unexpected future is that you are always trying to estimate the odds of certain scenarios (stuck in the house during a blizzard vs. stuck in the car during a multi-car pileup vs. terrorist attack) and your mind can quickly come up with worse scenarios that you aren't prepared for. This almost got the best of me during the Y2K scare. I almost quit an internship (that would have been devastating for my career) to move into a farm and prepare to raise our own food off the grid. Thankfully, that was too difficult to contemplate, so we stockpiled some food and water, found an alternate heat source that we never needed and hoped for the best. I panicked last year when I was trying to figure out how to seal off a room in our house per the Dept. of Homeland Security's Shelter-in-Place instructions in case of a chemical or airborne biological terrorist attack. I added this item to my 101 list to give myself another reason to complete these preparations to an acceptable level.

My brother and his 3 kids had to leave their home when an ice storm knocked out their power this winter. They were fine, but I sent him a few of the links to resources I had used for my preparations. I realized that a blog might help me organize my thoughts (like it has for this 101 in 1001 list) and get me motivated to complete my kits. I started posting to My Disaster Kit (http://mydisasterkit.blogspot.com/) recently and I plan to keep up with it to raise awareness about disaster preparedness and to help me get my own act together. Please check it out and comment on the posts I've got so far. I'd rather have a conversation than preach.