Beginnings
DisasterEmergencySupplies.com is meant to be an ever-changing site whose purpose is to give people a very personal view of how to prepare for an emergency or disaster, and give you some links where you can look at possible supplies. By ever-changing, I mean we intend to expand it as long as we have the ability to write it.
Emergency preparedness is such an incredibly large subject. To get this website up and running, we have started with some basic elements. We much more in the works. But if everyone did only this much, the people of our nation would have such a better chance of making it through the initial traumatic phase of a catastrophic event. We could also weather local emergencies - which will surely happen in many places during this year - far better than if we do not prepare. At least in my opinion.
And everything in the site is just that… our opinion. You have to decide for yourself if anything in it is usable, workable or even vaguely suitable for you in your circumstances. There are no promises, no guarantees. And that is as it should be. You really should question every technique and suggestion and recommendation you read from any source, on the web or not. Everyone is wrong sometimes. The hope is that people with experience can give you a variety of hints from what they have learned, and that those windows of knowledge can give you a better view.
But everything is different. It all depends. No two situations are exactly alike. The possible combinations of what can go wrong are nearly infinite. No one can say exactly what you should do until something actually happens. But we can build up a store of knowledge and supplies now, so that we will have something to work with when and if an event happens.
What event are we preparing for? I can think of several that may be right over the horizon. Big, life-changing, extremely traumatic events that could be coming our way in a relatively short period of time. Perhaps they will not happen… but I’m not betting my life on that.
Surely, there will be medium scale emergencies on the level of Katrina in the next few months. They are certain to happen from time to time. One may not - or may - hit your area. But I have no doubt that, some place in this great land of ours, there will be people who will wish they had prepared better. I suppose it’s telling that I consider Katrina to be medium in comparison to what may be in our future.
And I’m sorry… if you are depending on the government to save you, you are leaning on a broken reed.
Even in the best case scenario, disaster agencies need time to get into a major disaster area. You know that; it’s been in the news a lot during the past two years. In many locales - where I live, for example - I doubt if anything substantive in the way of emergency food or water or medical supplies could get here for days or even perhaps weeks. Maybe longer. I have no idea how any agency or combination of agencies could possibly handle a sudden disruption of food distribution in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area… and Atlanta… and New York… and Miami… all at once.
There was a time when self-reliance was the gold standard in American life. People were taught how to ‘do things’ as a part of growing up. It is no longer so. Skills that can make life go on without the mechanisms of modern society have fallen into disrespect. Some people literally do not know how to boil water.
Since you have taken the time to explore this site, you probably have a substantial amount of skills already. But perhaps even some of you have only a couple of days worth of food in your kitchen. There are more people than you would probably guess who have… zero, or close to it. They grab something to eat on their way to work, at work, and coming home. Why cook?
Things could get very serious, very quickly, once a disaster occurs.
This will be my only post exhorting you to get prepared now with enough emergency food and disaster supplies to give you and yours a good start, and to learn the skills you might need in case of an emergency. I hope you decide to begin as soon as possible. We do not know how much time we have.
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
“Some people literally do not know how to boil water.”
So true… without a stove or microwave, most people don’t know how to do so in a way that would not be dangerous, and a supply of safely burnable fuel is totally missing from most people’s homes unless they have a grill - and that fuel supply is usually tiny or linked to gas lines that would not last long if at all in an emergency.