Not always, but in this particular case, I'm talking about Disasters, Natural or otherwise.
As you're reading this, there is an extremely good chance there is a Disaster of some sort in progress somewhere. Disasters happen all the time, always have, and always will.
You can't stop a Disaster from happening, but you can better your chances of surviving the Disasters you will most assuredly experience in your lifetime.
As most of us know, much of Texas just experienced a Winter Weather Disaster. Ice, snow, frigid temps, power outages, in areas not prepared for such an event.
The internets were filled with people looking to shift responsibility from themselves to someone else.
"It never gets this cold here!", "We weren't warned about this ice storm!", "They said 15 minute rolling blackouts, not 4 hours....days!, "Not everybody can afford to go out at the last minute and buy a bunch of groceries!"
In the past, however many years, I'd say, 30'ish, people have gone from independence, to almost complete dependence.
I personally stood in the precipice of this happening, in the year 1993.
Prior to that, most homes still had boxy rooms with doors/dividers, gas heaters/wood stoves/fireplaces, kerosene lamps, canned food in the root cellar/basement. For many hundreds/thousands of years, people survived winter weather without meteorologists warning them, and/or without electricity.
When I was a kid in 1973, we experienced an Historic ice storm in the Atlanta 'burbs. I don't know if it was predicted, but it didn't matter if it was or wasn't, it happened.
Back then, maybe electricity was still new enough that it was still somewhat of a luxury, so if/when it went out, people just waited patiently for it to get turned back on.
And there was no way, shape, or form the Government was going to show up to provide you with food, water, and shelter, so screaming/demanding about that wasn't even a consideration. Neighbors and churches and even strangers helped each other out.
We had more snow/ice events throughout the next 20 years, a couple were fairly significant, namely "Snow Jam '82", and the "Blizzard of '93".
The Blizzard of '93 happened in March, after daily high temps of 70'sF, and wasn't really predicted pretty much until it started, and even then, IIRC, they didn't know it was going to be an actual blizzard.
By 1993, I was married with a couple kids, living in John-the-husband's grandfather's old house. Now, this old house should have been a perfect blizzard shelter. Small rooms, able to close off rooms to save on heating, well water, fireplace.
But, it wasn't.
I have no idea how JtH's family survived in that house. The walls were not only not insulated, they weren't finished inside. There were studs and exterior shiplap siding. Basically a tree house. They only had a fireplace with an old style chimney no flue to prevent down draft.
As I had never really survived a Disaster on my/our own, I didn't think about things like insulating and finishing the interior walls. Instead, I enclosed the front porch to make the living room larger, and also opened a wall between the living room and kitchen and created a hallway to the bathroom. While we could still close the bed room doors off, then we had to heat a larger living room and hallway and room addition on the back of the house.
We did seal off the fireplace and install a wood heater, but during that blizzard, sub-freezing temps, it was completely useless.
Also, we had an electric instead of gas kitchen stove.
Luckily my in-laws lived across the street in a single wide trailer, and had a gas kitchen stove that pretty much heated the whole place so we were able to stay warm and eat cooked food.
You know who I blamed for me/us not prepared any better than we were for a Disaster?
No one.
The next year, 1994, didn't really effect us, but it did a lot of others. The great flooding of Middle Georgia.
It started raining July 4th - I remember because I had on my coat and long pants outside trying to set off illegal fireworks - and it didn't stop for like 17 or 19 days straight. John worked in Macon at that time, and I told him he'd better not go, but he said he had to go.
A few hours later he called and said he was getting out of there, so if I didn't hear from him in a couple of hours...I forget what he said, but anyway, he did make it home.
We haven't experienced flooding - yet. It's unlikely we will, but I've learned to never say never.
I don't really have a full-fledged emergency plan in case of flooding. We don't live near a dam or levee that could suddenly break, the most of the flooding around here is from the river rising in down town, and it takes time for that to happen, so I'm mostly counting on the fact we'd likely have enough prior warning that we'd follow the fire plan: grab the go-bags and get out.
In October 1995, Hurricane Opal reached our area. We were lucky to have not taken much damage, as far as no trees on the house, but the electric was out for a week. Luckily the temps were mild so mostly we hung out, ate and used the bathroom at the in-laws across the street (so much for well water, the pump was electric).
The vast majority of Disasters we face most often is severe weather/tornadoes. We're subject to getting hit by a tornado any day of the year. We've had them as early as January, as late as December.
Used to, my tornado emergency plan was just to hide from it. You want to go to the middle of your house with interior walls on the lowest floor. I didn't really have an after-plan. I think I thought we'd just hang out here and protect what ever was left from looters and...I don't know, or my Momma and Daddy would come get us.
Now, I don't particularly care about looters. I keep two bags in the tornado shelter with us, one has my important papers, the other has pictures/external hard drive back up. If the house is damaged enough it's not safe to stay in it, and we can get out, then looters can have it. That's what I got insurance for.
But now I've gotten a few years on me, and seeing things that happen, and I'm aware there's a some what decent chance our area could get freight-trained by a tornado, and the roads blocked by lines, trees, debris, and we might not be able to get out to go anywhere else for awhile.
That's why I have a bin in a - hopefully safe'ish - small closet with things like an oil lamp/oil, hand cranked flashlight, batteries, first aid supplies, a small camping stove and a couple small bottles of propane, matches/lighters, basic tools, and I forget what else.
I've got water and food stored, and in addition, emergency food kits like tuna, peanut butter, crackers, tins of fruit, etc. in case my stored food were to be lost for some reason.
My next house is going to have a fully kitted out safe room in the middle of an underground basement.
Weather isn't the only Disaster you might face.
As John-the-Husband works in Emergency Services - firefighter/EMT - we have gone through "epi-/pandemics" for years.
You may or may not have heard much about SARS/MERS, Zika, West Nile, Ebola, this Flu, that Flu, but he - meaning we, because I hear about what he learns - were going through some pretty serious infectious disease trainings pretty often.
Way back then I had decided on the necessity of preparing for being sick, and not going, or not being able to get to a doctor. Self-doctoring, like we used to do, before HMO's.
Now I always make sure I keep on hand: ginger ale, gatorade (or other electrolyte drink mix), chicken noodle soup, jello, ice pops, throat drops, pain/fever reliever, other OTC meds for cough/cold/congestion/tummy upset/diarrhea, and lots and lots of kleenex.
We have sinus allergies, pretty much all the time, so go through kleenex like crazy. I usually buy a couple boxes when ever I grocery shop or am at Dollar Tree just to have extras on hand. By extras, I mean I keep about a dozen or so boxes on hand all the time. If I get less than that, I feel like I'm 'nearly out'.
(To be continued.....)
