Prepare for Emergencies

An emergency could be a common thing like a snow storm, lightning storm or heat wave that just gets out of hand. Or, it might be something that you know is coming but can't do much about like a wildfire, flood, volcano or hurricane. Or, maybe something that hits with little or no warning like an earthquake, tsunami or tornado. And those are just natural emergencies.

Dude, that's a lot of bumming activity! Sounds like there's no way we can survive these days, doesn't it? The news stories that come out every day are about people drowning here, getting blown up over there, freezing over here, getting washed away down there, and on and on. News services put cameras right into the heart of disasters as they happen and pipe it into my living room. It looks like the world's coming to an end every other day. Even the darn weatherman on the 10 o'clock news tries to make a normal rainstorm into the apocalypse to make it more interesting and get better ratings for his station. After awhile, it gets to be all the same - and that is when you're in real trouble!

After seeing all these disasters, people either freak out and are afraid to death that something is going to happen to them any minute or they figure its all hype and don't let it bother them. Both groups are in big trouble. The first is ripe for the taking by shysters out to make a buck off of their fear. But the second group, the ones not bothered at all, are in danger of losing their lives. How's that for hyping up the concern level? :-)

You have to understand that emergency preparedness is important. Being prepared means you aren't living in fear and you aren't living in denial - it's a perfect middle ground. You've also got to be a smart dude about what you prepare for - don't build a tornado shelter if you live in Idaho or buy extra earthquake insurance if you live in Minnesota. Just have a good emergency plan that includes an emergency kit created for the most probable disasters that may affect your neighborhood. Use my basic emergency advice to meet your key priorities and keep in mind any special needs your family may have.

Just a bit of emergency planning now, combined with annual maintenance, will really improve your probability of surviving whatever disaster hits. Chances are you'll never have to put your plan into play, but that's a lot different than not having a plan. I hope you take some time to read more on this site and learn something interesting to help you out.