Are you prepared if a natural disaster hit your home today? Sadly, most of us are not! So today, I want to share what you need to be prepared for an emergency!
Wherever you live, there is a chance that some type of a natural disaster could strike. It could be a hurricane, tornado, fire, flood, earthquake, ice storm, or mudslide, to name a few!
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I know, most people think a tragedy will not strike them. I used to be one of them!
What not to do in an emergency
When I was twenty-something, not so long ago, lol, I lived in a second-floor apartment!
I was blessed with a wonderful roommate!
One night, she woke me up saying, “We need to take cover! We are under a tornado warning!”
To which I replied, “If I’m going to die, I want to die in my bed!”
Lucky for me, the tornado did not hit our area!
She has never let me forget that night!
Now that I’m a wife and mother, I take natural disasters more seriously!
Especially after we had a crazy ice storm in Kentucky in 2009, and did not have power for a week!
This picture was taken in my parent’s backyard. The heavy ice broke many tree limbs and power lines, which left many without electricity!
Here in Florida, we recently had a tornado warning where we had to take cover! Hurricane season starts this week, on June 1st, and lasts through November 30th.
I thought it might be helpful to share with you how we organized and prepared in case of an emergency!
Your prep may be different based on what type of issues you face, but I think you can tweak our tips to meet your needs!
Prepare an Emergency Plan
It is extremely important, to prepare for an emergency in advance of it happening!
Here are the beginning steps to prepare your family for an emergency!
Safe place
Determine a safe place to go within your home to shelter during extreme weather emergencies, such as a tornado.
Meeting place
In case of a fire, determine how your family should escape your home and where to meet outside. Decide on a meeting place, outside your neighborhood, in case you are away from home when a disaster strikes and can’t return home.
Organize Important papers
Re-evaluate your homeowner’s policy to make sure you have adequate coverage!
Gather important papers and store them in a fire-safe box. If this is not in your budget, keep all of your important papers organized in a binder and put them in a waterproof container. Gather insurance policies and numbers. Family health info-allergies, medication lists, blood type, medical history. Recent family picture. Relative/friends’ phone numbers, emergency numbers for police, fire, poison control, etc.
collect Cash and coins
Have a stash of cash and coins and store them, with your important papers, in a fireproof/waterproof container. Have at least $100 per person- save a few dollars each week till you get to your goal!
Prepare an emergency KIT
It is important to have emergency supplies on hand and ready to take with you if you need to evacuate.
We store our emergency kit in our safe place. If we have to take shelter for a tornado warning, we have items we may need like flashlights, weather radio, etc. in place!
If we would need to evacuate our home, all we have to do is grab our container on the way out the door!
Find a plastic container to hold your emergency kit items.
Gather or purchase the following items to put in your container:
- AM/FM radio & batteries
- Flashlight/Lantern
- Batteries
- Watertight boxes
- Pocket knife/multi knife
- Waterproof matches
- Non-electric can opener
- Local & US maps/atlas
- Emergency Preparedness Manual
- Compass
- Toilet paper/qt Ziploc bags
- Hand sanitizer/moist towelettes
- First aid kit
- N-95 Mask
- Eating utensils
Items to store in your garage:
- Generator/gasoline-start your generator every year to make sure it is in good working order!
- Camp Stove/propane (for power outages)
Items to put in the car if you need to evacuate:
- Grab your emergency kit and important papers
- Blankets & pillows
- Work gloves
- Duct tape & plastic sheeting (to shelter in place)
- Ponchos
Prepare to have 3 Days of food and water
You should plan to have a three-day supply of water and nonperishable food for each person in your household.
Here is the start of our water stash! Each week I will purchase more! If we don’t need it during hurricane season, we take it camping with us!!
- Water -collect one gallon per person, per day. You can fill the bathtub with water if you have items to purify the water. You can purchase water purification tablets or a Lifestraw personal water filter (linked below).
- Non-perishable food
- Non-electric can opener
- Eating utensils
Prepare a hygiene kit
We have a camper, and each one of us has a hygiene kit we take to the bathhouse. I store them in a container in my closet and can grab them if we need to evacuate!
Prepare a Plan for your pets
Have pet supplies organized in one place in your home so you can grab them if you need to evacuate? See how we store our pet supplies here!
Prepare A kid kit
If you have young kids, put a plastic tub together with items to keep them busy and preoccupied instead of worrying. Coloring books, crayons, and travel games that don’t require batteries.
Now you know what you need to be prepared for in an emergency are you ready? Let me know in the comments below what type of emergency you need to be prepared for!
Blessings, Donna and Rich
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be prepared for an emergency
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CoCo says
This was such a helpful post, Donna! It’s hard to believe we’re already in hurricane season. While our side of the Atlantic has been mostly spared these past few years we restock and prepare our kits every year. I’m definitely going to be referring back to this post many times to make sure we’ve double-checked everything. Thanks so much for sharing! Big hugs, CoCo
Donna Allen says
Glad I could be of help! I’m happy to know you take hurricanes seriously and prepare ahead of time! Better safe than sorry!! Blessings, Donna