What I Learned from Hurricane Katrina

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Watching sad story after sad story taught me something about organizing my belongings and getting ready for a natural (or manmade disaster.)

1. Keep all your prescription medications in one area (We keep ours in a wicker basket near the coffee maker-so we take every morning) In the event of a disaster and we have to leave in a hurry-all we have to do is pickup the wicker basket

2. Make a copy of ALL Important papers and store them on a CD. Include your SS card, insurance papers, and birth certificates. If you have the fingerprints of your kids, store those images as well. Put it in a safe place (car glove box?) and grab it if you have to leave in a hurry.

3. Make sure you have batteries recharged.

4. When ever you go to bed make sure you have a pair of shoes handy (We live in a tornado area and if we have to head for the basement we know we can slip into a pair of shoes easily.

5. Keep some cash on hand in a safe place (we keep at lease $50-100 in a safe but accessible place) It might be worthwhile to store it with the CD of your important papers.

6. Don't run out of staples like bottled water, diapers, and canned soups. I always make sure I have a pantry stocked in the event of an emergency.

7. Put stuff where it belongs (can opener, dog leash, car keys, mobile phone). That way in an emergency you can react and not lose precious minutes if you have to move quickly.

8. Make everyone responsible for something ahead of time so you don't waste precious minutes making decisions that could cost you your life.

9. Lastly, remember is it only STUFF and it is replaceable. Your lives are the only real things worth saving.

By Diana M.

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By Sheron (Guest Post)

September 12, 20050 found this helpful

thanks for all the great advise, it is better to be prepared for something that may never happen then to not be be prepared when it does. I have also lived through a devistating hurricane that we thought thought would never really happen.

I have not ever been that complacent again.

Darween

September 13, 20050 found this helpful

Hi Diana!
Thanks for the great tips. Foresight is always so much better than hindsight!
After Katrina, my DH & I sat down & made a list of absolute essentials we'd need to "grab & run" with in case of emergency.
We pulled together prepacked "grab&run" bags. (suitcases)
We went around & found extras of things on our list to put in our bags, such as
*travel size toiletry kits
*first aid kits
*copies of important papers (prescriptions & such)
*extra underwear we're not using (at least a weeks worth)
Anything we can't prepack, we made a list to keep in the 'Grab Bags' of things we use everyday that can't be packed away.
In case of an emergency, We can glance down the list & quickly pull together these remaining items, without being sidetracked wasting valuable time scrounging up the other stuff (thats already packed).

stuff like =
*our daily wall calendar, personal phonebook, medicines, treasured Bible etc..

It was actually fun doing this because when we finished, we looked around the house at what was left and wondered "Hey, if it's not important enough to grab & take with us, then why are we keeping it now?"

Alot of decluttering, selling, giving away will soon get done! : )

By Diana (Guest Post)

September 13, 20050 found this helpful

Darween
I can't believe i Left my bible off my initial list! How would I get through a terrible event without it! And all those years of highlights and notes in the margins! Thanks for the reminder, again about what's REALLY important

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