Being Prepared Means less Fear

Hello,

Today, I plan to talk about the importance of Emergency Preparedness. I want to share my story about being prepared.

I grew up in Florida, and you know that means hurricanes but we hardly ever see them on the west coast. After I grew up and started having my family I realized I had more than just me to worry about so I started attending hurricane preparedness seminars. Every year I would go and every year I learned new stuff. We had only had one hurricane once that just sat in the gulf, Hurricane Elena, but eventually it moved off only leaving us with some beach erosion.

One year, my mothers aunt became ill so I took my kids and went to Miami to help her out for  a while. I never liked putting the radio on in the car because it was always a good time to talk with my family. But one day as we were going to the library my daughter begged me to turn it on, good thing we did because we heard the news saying that Hurricane Andrew was heading for Miami.

What a scare, we only had a day and a half to get ready for landfall. So we rushed home and started prepping the yard and house for the storm. All those years of preparation seminars helped me to be better prepared for this major storm. After the electricity went out we headed to a hallway in the middle of the house and waited out the storm. Early the next morning after daylight appeared we went out to assess the damage.

We had a couple of trees down, one against the house but no real damage, and one across the driveway. We still had no power then we saw why, a tree from the neighbors yard had fallen over the power line from the street to the house. But we were all in good shape other than that. The bad part of it was the electric company couldn't fix lines to the house until they had power up on all the streets. So we lived several weeks without power.

Lucky for us my aunt had a gas stove so we could still cook without a problem but the well was on an electric pump, so we had to go borrow water every day from friends, once we were able to get out of the driveway. I think because of all those seminars we were better prepared for the storm. We always have to be prepared anywhere we live and not just because of  Mother Nature.

I have learned that emergencies happen when you lose a job, or a loved one, or the economy gets tight, there are just so many different scenarios. But the key is to be prepared no matter what. All those things need the basics which include cash, food/water and shelter. If those needs are met then it is easier to think through your situation and get down to business of picking up the pieces.

The funny thing is after 8 years of living out west with no real emergencies, we moved back to Florida to be closer to family in 2004. Yeah, that was the year 4 big hurricanes hit Florida. welcome back, right?

Anyway, over the next few months we will be discussing how to make emergency preparedness plans. Until then stay safe.