Do you have an emergency plan and kit?

Rob Keeble

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Location
GTA Ontario Canada
The events of the first couple of months of 2011
Australia. Floods on huge scale.
Japan today tsunami of incredible scale.

Will you be ready if something unplanned or unexpected happens to your family?
The boy scout motto has always been " be prepared"

If ever there was reason to have a plan B now is the time to get motivated to really deal with this subject.

To me there are several layers to this issue

1) Immediate survival ... Food water,shelter basic medical supplies not just a Mickey mouse first aid kit,footware ,etc
2) what next.... Money...hard cash on hand not in the bank or under the mattress but in your kit ready to go.
3) precious personal items...plan?
Here I view online backup as cheap insurance for securing all our pictures and home video. Back in the day this was not possible but today it's easy and not expensive.
Computer info such as documents etc

We have so many small business folk that are using software to run all sorts of businesses right down to quick books. But I hear those that say I have it backed up to an external harddrive .. Agree but what if you are away from home at the time of the emergency or if you get seperated from your hard drive a very real possibility in an emergency when pure survival is on your mind.
Then comes all your paperwork and identity stuff.
Scanning this stuff encrypting it and backing up offline will ensure you can recover if you survive but your plan should consider what if don't but a family member does?

I have been ragged on more than one occasion by many of my friends over the years because I practice the "boy scouts outlook" and I am not gonna be waiting for someone else far away to come save me.

Yes there is a cost to this no question .

But you buy insurance and pay for it continuously and they won't even be able to help you in the early stages of an emergency. Then when they do you got hope they don't hide under the force majeur rock of " act of God"
Then comes the ...dreaded deductible clause..which comes back to have you got cash on hand???

This only becomes the beginning.

Now your a small businessman what is your business disaster recovery plan?

Have not met one company yet that actually has a plan of any kind.

If you consider the issues today ...

- something happens in other parts of the world today and it affects you today immediately in ways you never imaginedl

- food .... Much is even made in other countries or grown elsewhere. Australia is a huge wheat producer but the crops were all spoilt with the floods and rains.
- products no longer locally manufactured
- financial impacts of being globally connected
- online business will rely on being able to switch locations imagine if you cannot ship product because of closure of a major airport or port?

The list goes on but how many of us deal with this?


So my question to you, in your family you are the leader and head of your family , what steps have you taken? How effective in reality is your preparation??

You think like many that it's not going to happen to you????
 
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All good advice Rob and good points to think about.

Since 9/11 I've kept a small amount of supplies available and rotate out some frequently. I also keep some extra gas around, guns cleaned, and stocked up on ammo (which also gets rotated out too). :D

Been working on getting affairs in order as well. I typically handle the finances and such. I've been working on getting things documented for my wife so she knows what we have and will know what needs to be done if something happens to me.

Planning on doing a garden this spring and looking forward to it though it will be work. Should help with our budget some, be healthier to eat, and be good exercise overall.

Still have a lot to do towards a perfect plan, but have basics covered for a short term disaster.
 
Great post Rob.
If anyone needs some tips on this, I'm a deploying member of DMAT CA6 (ca6dmat.org) and am thinking about changing my surgery date so I can deploy to Japan. We live out of our pack for 2-3 weeks at a time in a diaster situation and are well suited to help folks think about what's needed and wanted in a time of nothing.
Water is of prime concern so forget storing it...get a water purifier from REI, Bass Pro shop...any of those. Next...locate a water source near you...lake, river, ponding basin..whatever. MRE's are $5 on ebay and at 2500 calories a day provide plenty of nutrition. I have about 20 at home and carry 3 in my "Go-bags".
Propane tanks (5 gal for BBQ's) are great since you can get a chimney that can run 3-4 items at a time. They are so cheap, there is no reason not to have 2 around the house. Coleman 2-3 burner stoves can be found at yard sales and what a great way to cook!. 2-3 2 liter soda bottles filled with water and 1/2 tsp of bleach and frozen can keep the fridge cold for a while and as they melt can be used for water.
A crank up radio...c crain i think?..is a good place to think about. Mine runs for an hour fully cranked and has solar cells for daytime use. Solar charges for your cell phone are great!!
Just some ideas that we use all the time and there are tons more!
Again..Rob, timely and well done post!!!
 
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Here are some links for those interested in what is recomended to go in an emergency kit.

http://www.getprepared.gc.ca/index-eng.aspx

Here is a document that provides a real good checklist to work from.

http://www.getprepared.gc.ca/_fl/pub/ep-gd-prprtn-eng.pdf

You can get MREs on Ebay in bulk and they good for around 10 years.

This makes the chore of rotating non existent.


I would far sooner have stuff like this on hand than be waiting for a handout.

For online backup look to something like this site but take the business subscription not the home one.


Just think of those poor sould in Japan that have just been wiped out. They did not know this was going to hit them when they started out the week.

Yeah unpleasant subject and a load of money for "just in case" but better safe than sorry.
 
Timely post indeed. ;)

We're pretty well-prepared here with supplies, but we need to do a better job of getting it all gathered into a central location should we need to bug out. (We got some practice with the evacuation stuff a year and a half ago with the Station fire.) In the event of an earthquake, we'd likely be staying put, even if it meant camping in the yard. If that happens, we're pretty well set up, although a generator and/or solar charger would be a good addition.
 
We always joked that our F350/Big Foot camper is our go-pack, and it may actually be some day, but there may be times where travel won't always work.

We've talked, but never acted on using our old mountain back packs as the perfect things to use (they were serious ones from REI, so hold a lot). I think we need to start talking seriously about getting them ready to go.

Out where we live, I think our biggest threats are wild fires (Big Foot escape out of here) and the potential 100 year flood down in the valley (backup supplies as we would be high up on the hill).
 
In addition to being prepared with an assortment of essentials and having an emergency plan in place I would add the idea that everyone should take a basic first aid class. You might find on offered through the American Red Cross.

I was a boy scout and we studied basic first aid as a troop. I had the unfortunate experience of witnessing the death of a neighbor ironically when I stopped by a friends house to walk to the boy scout meeting. The guy was terribly mangled in an auto accident right in front of my friends home as we were leaving his house. There is nothing like feeling helpless and not knowing what to do. In this case there was really nothing we could do and the paramedics just shot the guy full of morphine and he died as I watched.

This proved to be a catalyst for me in that I payed close attention to first aid afterwards and later took a survival/ emergency medicine class while in college. What I learned in those classes has enabled me to give first aid on several occasions and save the lives of several persons. I have come on several auto accidents and been in one tornado over the years and I am still amazed with all the people standing around doing nothing to help the injured.

CPR is a good thing to know.

I was really pleased when my wife and 19'yr old son took a first responder class last year. My son was able to give first aid to a motorcyclist who wiped out before he even finished the class.

It may be hard to anticipate what life may bring in the way of disasters and accidents but it is always good to have the ability to respond and have some course of action kind of pre-thought of in your head.

Planning is everything
 
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