Sprouts are even more space saving than dried foods because a small amount of seeds will produce a much larger amount of food and good nutrition when they are sprouted and ready to eat. The shelf space that the seeds for sprouting take up is very small.
Here is what you need to do sprouting:
Seeds that are not chemically treated (I also prefer organic, and non GMO seeds)
1 glass jar for each variety of seeds you wish to sprout at one time
A piece of screen or cloth like cheesecloth for each jar (small seeds may require more layers of cloth or screen)
1 string or rubber band to hold the cloth over the mouth of the jar
Clean, not too cold or hot water for rinsing and soaking the seeds
Exact instructions for different types of seeds vary, but some basics apply to most. Put the seeds in your sprouting jar or sprouter. Rinse the seeds off and drain the rinse water. Pour warm water on the seeds and leave them soaking overnight or about 6-8 hours or so. The exact time is not that critical. The soaking water needs to be several times the volume of the seeds that you wish to sprout. They will expand a lot while they are soaking and some will not be kept wet if you don't have enough water on them. If that happens they probably won't sprout.
You can use a glass jar with a piece of cloth or screen across the lid to keep the seeds in when you drain them. You will have to keep the seeds fairly warm when your are sprouting them, though. If you are in cold weather without power, you will have to keep the seeds near your body while you are sprouting them. If this last sentence sounds odd to you, that is because you live in a warmer climate than I do. I live in Alaska and it is very relevant here.
After the seeds have soaked initially, they need to be drained and rinsed a couple of times. You can save the soaking water to use for beverages, soups or other cooking. It is very nutritious and adds flavor to soups. It also saves water if you do not have a lot. You can re-use the water every time you rinse the seeds that you are sprouting.
After the first soaking, you will need to re-soak the seeds for about 10-15 minutes at least twice a day. Drain and rinse them again two or three times each time you re-soak them.
You need to do this until the sprouts are ready to eat. It will vary from 3 to 10 days most of the time. After the sprouts are big enough, they will gain a little more nutrition if you expose them to light for an hour or more so that they turn green. That is just the tiny "leaves" on the top ends.
Give the sprouts a final rinse or two and they are ready for consumption or cold storage, if that is available. If you do not have a working refrigerator during the emergency, they will keep at room temperature for at least a day or so unless it is very hot or very cold.
If you buy a sprouter, they will usually come with instructions on how to use them on various seeds. Seeds intended especially for sprouting often have instructions for that type of seed.
You can buy different sorts of sprouters that allow you to sprout more than one type of seed at a time or will automatically soak and rinse the seeds or are especially easy to use. I bought one of the latter and I like it very much. It is even possible to do sprouting while you are travelling. That would include if you find it necessary to evacuate on foot and it takes several days to reach your destination. There are backpackers who sprout as they go hiking.
Sprouting is a very good thing to do all the time if you like to eat healthy fresh food or cheap food. If you eat a variety of sprouts it is not necessary to buy any produce for your nutrition. Since I began sprouting, my food bill has dropped a lot. This allows me to buy the preparedness items that I can not make like a good wind up radio. If you work at reducing your food costs you can do likewise.
Lowering your budget is not an obvious part of disaster preparedness, but if you think about the cost of some of the items on your list, you can easily see why it is. I plan to write about how to save money so you can afford to have the preparedness items you need sooner, or at all.
There are some larger seeds that you can sprout as well as the usual ones. Pumpkin seeds and walnuts are in this category. They are called "soaks" rather than sprouts because they don't actually sprout before you eat them. They are usually soaked overnight and eaten the next day. These are good if you are in a hurry for something to eat and want the extra nutrition from sprouting. Most regular sprouting takes from three days to a little over a week to be ready to eat. That means you could plan to eat soaks for a few days until your first sprouts are ready if you are just starting out in an emergency.
You can use sprouts on most foods just to give it a nutrition boost or because you want something fresh to eat. I even put them on my breakfast cereal at times. You can make salads entirely of sprouts and incorporate them into baked or fried foods. This can be helpful to keep you from getting bored with your emergency foods during a longer term disaster.
I must apologize for a problem with my blog. The dates did not post correctly due to an error I made. I had to go back and re-do the dates because it was giving the same date to different posts. If you have been using the notifier on my site to tell you when I do a new post that will not have been working and you will have missed some new posts that are up. I am attempting to post daily at this time.
I wish to post about water for emergency preparedness next. It will probably require several posts since it can require a lot of information and is even more important to your well being than food.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
Dried Foods For Disaster Preparedness
Dried foods are excellent for emergency preparedness food storage because they don't need to be refrigerated or frozen. (No electricity required to keep them from spoiling.) They don't take up a lot of space, and are easy to prepare.
Freeze dried foods are especially good for emergencies. I belonged to a buyers group a while back and got free samples. They taste very good, take little space to store and are easy to prepare. Their drawback is their high cost. If you can afford them and like them they can be a good way to go. If the cost of freeze dried foods gives you pause, you could buy just a few of them and make the bulk of your emergency meals out of other foods.
It is possible to dry your own emergency foods. I do this myself. I do not dry all of the foods in my emergency storage, but the ones I dry increase the amount of time I can last during an emergency. They also lower the cost of my food storage.
My first tentative attempts at drying food were not for an emergency. I wanted to have dried orange peel to use in cooking. The stuff I got from the spice section in the grocery store tasted like Tang. This was not the taste I wanted. I thought that grating a little orange peel and drying it could not be that hard.
I grated it on the fine part of my grater and spread it on a cookie sheet lined with paper towels and put another layer of paper towels over it to keep the dust out. It worked just great. I always keep some on hand now. I don't always eat organic oranges and the grated peel I have stored is organic and is always ready when without an extra trip to the grocery. The convenience is a worthwhile benefit.
Since then I have dried many more leftover bits of food on top of my fridge on a cookie sheet lined with cheesecloth or paper towels. I did it enough to justify getting a food drier from a yard sale.
It is also good for making fruit leather. I do not make it for myself, because it is too sweet for me most of the time. Children love it though. They love it even more if you let them help make it. It is wetter than regular fruit and takes up to three days or even longer to dry. It depends on your drier, weather and other things. It is long enough to get up good anticipation by the time it is ready. Forget about storing any from the first batch.
Fruit leather is ideal for a food storage program because it does not require any preparation to eat. The hardest part is having some left for emergencies.
Freeze dried foods are especially good for emergencies. I belonged to a buyers group a while back and got free samples. They taste very good, take little space to store and are easy to prepare. Their drawback is their high cost. If you can afford them and like them they can be a good way to go. If the cost of freeze dried foods gives you pause, you could buy just a few of them and make the bulk of your emergency meals out of other foods.
It is possible to dry your own emergency foods. I do this myself. I do not dry all of the foods in my emergency storage, but the ones I dry increase the amount of time I can last during an emergency. They also lower the cost of my food storage.
My first tentative attempts at drying food were not for an emergency. I wanted to have dried orange peel to use in cooking. The stuff I got from the spice section in the grocery store tasted like Tang. This was not the taste I wanted. I thought that grating a little orange peel and drying it could not be that hard.
I grated it on the fine part of my grater and spread it on a cookie sheet lined with paper towels and put another layer of paper towels over it to keep the dust out. It worked just great. I always keep some on hand now. I don't always eat organic oranges and the grated peel I have stored is organic and is always ready when without an extra trip to the grocery. The convenience is a worthwhile benefit.
Since then I have dried many more leftover bits of food on top of my fridge on a cookie sheet lined with cheesecloth or paper towels. I did it enough to justify getting a food drier from a yard sale.
It is also good for making fruit leather. I do not make it for myself, because it is too sweet for me most of the time. Children love it though. They love it even more if you let them help make it. It is wetter than regular fruit and takes up to three days or even longer to dry. It depends on your drier, weather and other things. It is long enough to get up good anticipation by the time it is ready. Forget about storing any from the first batch.
Fruit leather is ideal for a food storage program because it does not require any preparation to eat. The hardest part is having some left for emergencies.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Why Prepare For Emergencies/Disasters?
Emergency preparedness is useful for more than a national or local disaster. It can keep you afloat if you lose a job or have an unexpected illness or injury. It is easier to see this during times of high unemployment and financial uncertainty. It just makes sense to think about how you will get by if you lose your job or get in a car wreck.
A more mundane reason for emergency food storage is convenience and economy. It is generally cheaper to buy in bulk. If you buy enough oats to last for six months it will probably cost you less per serving than if you buy enough for a few meals. You will not have to go to the store as often and that will be convenient and save you time and gas money.
Stores are designed to make you spend more money than you need to. The less time you spend in stores, the less money you spend.
A lot of people can see that a disaster could happen where they live. Looking at the news of extreme weather events worldwide and tsunamis and earthquakes encourages more thinking about what they can do to be prepared.
If you are kind of sitting on the fence about an emergency plan and doing something about it, I hope you will read my blog and take action.
It is ok to start with a pillowcase with a candle, matches, and a can of tuna in it. That will not get you through a long emergency, but it is a start. You are that much closer to being prepared than if you did nothing.
There is an old song that I like called the Arkansas Traveler. It is about a man who didn't want to patch his roof when it was not raining because the leaks were not a problem. That is how I look at preparedness. You have to patch the leaks before it rains. Don't wait for a disaster to come to your neighborhood, to show you the necessity for emergency preparedness.
A more mundane reason for emergency food storage is convenience and economy. It is generally cheaper to buy in bulk. If you buy enough oats to last for six months it will probably cost you less per serving than if you buy enough for a few meals. You will not have to go to the store as often and that will be convenient and save you time and gas money.
Stores are designed to make you spend more money than you need to. The less time you spend in stores, the less money you spend.
A lot of people can see that a disaster could happen where they live. Looking at the news of extreme weather events worldwide and tsunamis and earthquakes encourages more thinking about what they can do to be prepared.
If you are kind of sitting on the fence about an emergency plan and doing something about it, I hope you will read my blog and take action.
It is ok to start with a pillowcase with a candle, matches, and a can of tuna in it. That will not get you through a long emergency, but it is a start. You are that much closer to being prepared than if you did nothing.
There is an old song that I like called the Arkansas Traveler. It is about a man who didn't want to patch his roof when it was not raining because the leaks were not a problem. That is how I look at preparedness. You have to patch the leaks before it rains. Don't wait for a disaster to come to your neighborhood, to show you the necessity for emergency preparedness.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
I Get Up Close And Personal About Emergency Preparedness
I want to make my blog the best that I can manage, so that means that I read stuff about: "How Write A Good Blog," a lot. I just read that one should write stories and write about your personal experiences and feelings in a blog to make it more interesting. I have actually been trying to avoid this. Hoo boy! Now we are all in for it! It will be a lot easier for me to do that than keep it impersonal.
I suppose all of that means I should tell you that I have a fat cat purring in my lap. This one is the amateur one who is only about three years old. The professional cat, a twenty-two-year-old, is napping elsewhere. I have the keyboard on his back and he seems to like it. It can make typing a little more of a challenge.
Anyway. I actually want people to read my blog and rush out and get prepared for a disaster. I think that will keep the people who do that alive more than people who do not do get prepared for a disaster.
My readership is not huge, so far anyway, but you have to start somewhere. I hope the few who have read this, are a little safer because of it.
I read a story that scared me when I read it. I thought that it would be good to put a link to it in my blog so maybe it will scare more people into getting prepared for disasters. We can try it and see what happens.
Link to scary preparedness story
If your family members, like mine, have mixed reactions to the idea of disaster preparedness, maybe showing the story to them will rattle them enough to get prepared. I am printing it out and sending my family hard copies.
This has been a brief interruption in my process of trying to help people be prepared for disasters. I plan to go back to the subject at hand, disaster food.
I enlarged the text on this post so that I could see it sitting way back from the screen to avoid disturbing my cat any more. I kind of like it enlarged like this and am going to keep doing it. I am waiting for new glasses with bifocal lenses so I can have closeup and computer vision in the same pair of glasses. I was going to shrink the font size when the cat left, (he did,) but I changed my mind.
I like sitting comfortably back in my seat while I type. It is much better than having my face glued to the monitor. I hope you readers are not bothered by it, and maybe some like it better.
Next post I will get back to emergency preparedness food, I hope in a more interesting way.
I suppose all of that means I should tell you that I have a fat cat purring in my lap. This one is the amateur one who is only about three years old. The professional cat, a twenty-two-year-old, is napping elsewhere. I have the keyboard on his back and he seems to like it. It can make typing a little more of a challenge.
Anyway. I actually want people to read my blog and rush out and get prepared for a disaster. I think that will keep the people who do that alive more than people who do not do get prepared for a disaster.
My readership is not huge, so far anyway, but you have to start somewhere. I hope the few who have read this, are a little safer because of it.
I read a story that scared me when I read it. I thought that it would be good to put a link to it in my blog so maybe it will scare more people into getting prepared for disasters. We can try it and see what happens.
Link to scary preparedness story
If your family members, like mine, have mixed reactions to the idea of disaster preparedness, maybe showing the story to them will rattle them enough to get prepared. I am printing it out and sending my family hard copies.
This has been a brief interruption in my process of trying to help people be prepared for disasters. I plan to go back to the subject at hand, disaster food.
I enlarged the text on this post so that I could see it sitting way back from the screen to avoid disturbing my cat any more. I kind of like it enlarged like this and am going to keep doing it. I am waiting for new glasses with bifocal lenses so I can have closeup and computer vision in the same pair of glasses. I was going to shrink the font size when the cat left, (he did,) but I changed my mind.
I like sitting comfortably back in my seat while I type. It is much better than having my face glued to the monitor. I hope you readers are not bothered by it, and maybe some like it better.
Next post I will get back to emergency preparedness food, I hope in a more interesting way.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Emergency Preparedness Supplies Food
I hope you have started your disaster supplies list and have gotten together items for it that you already have on hand. If you are going to keep a can opener in your disaster supplies, it would be a good idea to have an extra one that you always keep in your supplies container(s), for example. The same applies to other items in daily use, an extra one should always stay in the emergency supplies container.
Even your supplies intended for keeping and using in your home to shelter in place should be a special container that is easy and quick to get to and can be moved easily. Reasons for this are that if the power is out it would be hard to find what you need if the items are all over your home, some disasters involve being in one room of your home for a while. The last could be a hurricane or tornado alert, for example. You would want to bring your disaster supplies to that room as quickly as possible.
If you cannot afford to buy all the items on your disaster supplies list at one time, you may want to decide what to get first and keep working on it to complete it as soon as possible. You will need to decide your philosophy about what you want to do with your preparedness plans for yourself and your family. Some people are happy to get a three day supply and leave it at that. Others make preparedness a lifestyle. Most people are somewhere in between. Some churches suggest that their members always have a two year supply of food and other necessities on hand.
With times and financial matters in shaky condition worldwide, I believe that more than three days is better. Once you decide how much food, etc. you want to have prepared, you need to decide what you want to eat. A lot of people spend money on prepackaged disaster food in neat little boxes to stack in a closet, attic or basement. I do not like that approach because it tends to waste food. The prepackaged stuff is not necessarily what you and your family want to eat even if you know how to cook it. Foods that you and your family already eat every day are a better choice. You know you like those foods and how to cook them. They make you feel normal and happy. This can be very important to keep your spirits up in a tense disaster situation.
Your cooking arrangements may have to be different during a disaster if there is a power outage. An alternative cooking method would be a good idea for a preparedness item to have on hand. I like rocket stoves. That does not mean you have to like rocket stoves. Check around for what is available for you and pick what you like best.
Your food items should be things that do not require a working refrigerator or freezer. Power outages are often a feature of disasters and a freezer full of spoiling food would not prepare you for a disaster. Canned and dried foods are a more useful choice. MREs are often considered a necessity for preparedness. I don't agree. The ex-military people I have spoken to about them convinced me that MREs are not good for preparedness in general. One of their worst disadvantages is that they cause horrible constipation if consumed regularly with nothing else to eat. You don't want to be sick in an emergency, so why eat something that will encourage that?
MREs are convenient and don't require much thought to prepare. Some of them even include something that allows you to pull a tab and they automatically heat. That can be good if you are not able to think well during an emergency, but it would be a good idea to be able to manage to think well enough that you won't need to use an MRE to prepare food to eat instead. MREs do not require much thought to buy and have on hand either. That is also a benefit. If you must use MREs, then limit how many and have other food to use as well.
Freeze dried food is also convenient, but the biggest drawback is that it is expensive. If you live on nothing but freeze dried food, you might prefer to plan to dine out at an expensive restaurant for the duration of the disaster on the money it will cost. Just kidding. Sorta. They do cost a lot, but they do taste great. Some companies give free samples and I have tried them and can say they are quite delicious. The ones I tried were only a couple of brands and were touted as being gourmet quality. I could not vouch for all brands on a taste test. If the company you decide on does not offer free samples, perhaps you could buy a small amount and give it a taste test for your family, before you decide to buy more.
I just buy my regular food involving dried and canned goods and figure out how many meals it will cover and restock it regularly. Putting a sticker on your food items to make it easier to rotate your supply, will help prevent spoiled and wasted food.
Comfort items are a good idea to include for emergencies. Examples might be hot chocolate including marshmallows or brownies. Every person and every family has their own special comfort items so be kind to yourselves and have them for emergencies too. The tenseness during an emergency can be eased by comfort items.
I plan to cover more about food for emergency preparedness.
Even your supplies intended for keeping and using in your home to shelter in place should be a special container that is easy and quick to get to and can be moved easily. Reasons for this are that if the power is out it would be hard to find what you need if the items are all over your home, some disasters involve being in one room of your home for a while. The last could be a hurricane or tornado alert, for example. You would want to bring your disaster supplies to that room as quickly as possible.
If you cannot afford to buy all the items on your disaster supplies list at one time, you may want to decide what to get first and keep working on it to complete it as soon as possible. You will need to decide your philosophy about what you want to do with your preparedness plans for yourself and your family. Some people are happy to get a three day supply and leave it at that. Others make preparedness a lifestyle. Most people are somewhere in between. Some churches suggest that their members always have a two year supply of food and other necessities on hand.
With times and financial matters in shaky condition worldwide, I believe that more than three days is better. Once you decide how much food, etc. you want to have prepared, you need to decide what you want to eat. A lot of people spend money on prepackaged disaster food in neat little boxes to stack in a closet, attic or basement. I do not like that approach because it tends to waste food. The prepackaged stuff is not necessarily what you and your family want to eat even if you know how to cook it. Foods that you and your family already eat every day are a better choice. You know you like those foods and how to cook them. They make you feel normal and happy. This can be very important to keep your spirits up in a tense disaster situation.
Your cooking arrangements may have to be different during a disaster if there is a power outage. An alternative cooking method would be a good idea for a preparedness item to have on hand. I like rocket stoves. That does not mean you have to like rocket stoves. Check around for what is available for you and pick what you like best.
Your food items should be things that do not require a working refrigerator or freezer. Power outages are often a feature of disasters and a freezer full of spoiling food would not prepare you for a disaster. Canned and dried foods are a more useful choice. MREs are often considered a necessity for preparedness. I don't agree. The ex-military people I have spoken to about them convinced me that MREs are not good for preparedness in general. One of their worst disadvantages is that they cause horrible constipation if consumed regularly with nothing else to eat. You don't want to be sick in an emergency, so why eat something that will encourage that?
MREs are convenient and don't require much thought to prepare. Some of them even include something that allows you to pull a tab and they automatically heat. That can be good if you are not able to think well during an emergency, but it would be a good idea to be able to manage to think well enough that you won't need to use an MRE to prepare food to eat instead. MREs do not require much thought to buy and have on hand either. That is also a benefit. If you must use MREs, then limit how many and have other food to use as well.
Freeze dried food is also convenient, but the biggest drawback is that it is expensive. If you live on nothing but freeze dried food, you might prefer to plan to dine out at an expensive restaurant for the duration of the disaster on the money it will cost. Just kidding. Sorta. They do cost a lot, but they do taste great. Some companies give free samples and I have tried them and can say they are quite delicious. The ones I tried were only a couple of brands and were touted as being gourmet quality. I could not vouch for all brands on a taste test. If the company you decide on does not offer free samples, perhaps you could buy a small amount and give it a taste test for your family, before you decide to buy more.
I just buy my regular food involving dried and canned goods and figure out how many meals it will cover and restock it regularly. Putting a sticker on your food items to make it easier to rotate your supply, will help prevent spoiled and wasted food.
Comfort items are a good idea to include for emergencies. Examples might be hot chocolate including marshmallows or brownies. Every person and every family has their own special comfort items so be kind to yourselves and have them for emergencies too. The tenseness during an emergency can be eased by comfort items.
I plan to cover more about food for emergency preparedness.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Prepare For Disasters - Make Your Family Safer
The Red Cross is a quasi-goverment organization. They work so closely with the govenment of the US that they are almost part of it. They usually arrive on the scene of a disaster before most government agencies do. They specialize in preparedness training and putting up and running shelters. They are a huge organization and their web site reflects all this. It is so big and complex that even people who work for the Red Cross don't know about the whole site.
The Red Cross site(s) are something that can easily overwhelm one if you let it. Don't let it overwhelm you. It is just fine to look around on it a little, but put your time into getting your basic preparedness supplies first and working out your personal and family disaster plan. After you do that you can cruise the Red Cross site and spend the rest of your life getting educated about disaster preparedness.
The Red Cross depends on volunteers and likes more of them any time. If you feel moved to become a Red Cross volunteer they do have fringe benefits. You may get a discount on classes with them. CPR, AED and First Aid are something every family should have at least one family member certified to be able to do. The Red Cross class is kind of pricey, but what is a life worth?
If you can't afford a Red Cross class even at a discount there are other options. FEMA recently paid for CPR, AED and First Aid for free all over the country. I got my certificate free because I am a volunteer leader for my local Neighborhood Emergency Watch. That is not to be confused with the crime fighters. The one I volunteer for is for getting prepared for emergencies like fires, floods, earthquakes, etc. Funds for this are limited so don't wait. My training was given through the American Heart Association, paid by the local Emergency Management Center, with funding that came from FEMA. You don't have to be a Neighborhood Emergency Watch Leader to get free training, but you get cuts in line for it and they are already low on the free classes in my area.
The Red Cross used to have a list that was specifically for go bags. A search on their site brings up pages of not necessarily directly relevant information and it could take a while to find out for sure if they still have the go bag list. I don't have a lot of time to write this today, so I am going to give you some suggestions on how to pare down your list of items to take with you to a shelter or if you can not take much with you to evacuate.
I would start with copies of important papers and medical necessities. I like hand sanitizer because studies I have read say that most diseases are spread by hand contact. Hand sanitizer does not require water, which may be hard to come by, especially clean water. I also like something to clean with like a washcloth. They have super absorbent towels that are very small and weigh very little. They are usually expensive.
Shelters are very boring and you can spend a lot of time just sitting with nothing to do. Something to entertain yourself and your family, especially if you have children, may prevent another disaster by keeping you occupied enough to avoid strangling each other. The entertainment would be better if it does not involve electricity, or batteries, neither of which may be available.
If anyone in the family is high-strung you might want to bring something like Bach Rescue Remedy. It is an herbal calming solution that does not use drugs and is not habit forming. You might want to check the ingredients to see that nobody is allergic to anything in it. I use it for my pets when I take them to the vet and it works very well for that purpose. It is made for humans, though.
No pillows are given in shelters, if you need one, bring it. You may not be happy with the blankets either, but you have to decide how much you can carry and what space there will be for what you bring. If you are simply evacuating, the space in your vehicle or on your back is the limiting factor.
At least a change of underwear and socks is a good idea, and an entire change of clothes per person, if you can manage it. I find it helpful to pick my backpack to be used as a go bag and actually pack it to help decide what to leave out. You have probably already noticed that suggested items could fill up a huge vehicle and leave no room in it for people if you were to take them all. It will definitely be necessary to prioritize what to bring.
I lightly pencil in priority numbers on a printed list and start with the top ones and work my way down. Checking to see what will fit in your go bag periodically is very useful. Checking to see what you can actually comfortably carry and still walk is also useful.
Here are a couple of links to Red Cross pages of a supply list and a print out of emergency contact cards for all family members to have with them at all times. Emergencies are rarely conveniently scheduled for when you have everything you need handy.
Red Cross PDF supplies suggestions
Red Cross PDF Family Emergency contact cards to print out for each family member
No supplies are much use unless you are able to use them. I suggest you and your family practice. I will blog about that too.
The Red Cross site(s) are something that can easily overwhelm one if you let it. Don't let it overwhelm you. It is just fine to look around on it a little, but put your time into getting your basic preparedness supplies first and working out your personal and family disaster plan. After you do that you can cruise the Red Cross site and spend the rest of your life getting educated about disaster preparedness.
The Red Cross depends on volunteers and likes more of them any time. If you feel moved to become a Red Cross volunteer they do have fringe benefits. You may get a discount on classes with them. CPR, AED and First Aid are something every family should have at least one family member certified to be able to do. The Red Cross class is kind of pricey, but what is a life worth?
If you can't afford a Red Cross class even at a discount there are other options. FEMA recently paid for CPR, AED and First Aid for free all over the country. I got my certificate free because I am a volunteer leader for my local Neighborhood Emergency Watch. That is not to be confused with the crime fighters. The one I volunteer for is for getting prepared for emergencies like fires, floods, earthquakes, etc. Funds for this are limited so don't wait. My training was given through the American Heart Association, paid by the local Emergency Management Center, with funding that came from FEMA. You don't have to be a Neighborhood Emergency Watch Leader to get free training, but you get cuts in line for it and they are already low on the free classes in my area.
The Red Cross used to have a list that was specifically for go bags. A search on their site brings up pages of not necessarily directly relevant information and it could take a while to find out for sure if they still have the go bag list. I don't have a lot of time to write this today, so I am going to give you some suggestions on how to pare down your list of items to take with you to a shelter or if you can not take much with you to evacuate.
I would start with copies of important papers and medical necessities. I like hand sanitizer because studies I have read say that most diseases are spread by hand contact. Hand sanitizer does not require water, which may be hard to come by, especially clean water. I also like something to clean with like a washcloth. They have super absorbent towels that are very small and weigh very little. They are usually expensive.
Shelters are very boring and you can spend a lot of time just sitting with nothing to do. Something to entertain yourself and your family, especially if you have children, may prevent another disaster by keeping you occupied enough to avoid strangling each other. The entertainment would be better if it does not involve electricity, or batteries, neither of which may be available.
If anyone in the family is high-strung you might want to bring something like Bach Rescue Remedy. It is an herbal calming solution that does not use drugs and is not habit forming. You might want to check the ingredients to see that nobody is allergic to anything in it. I use it for my pets when I take them to the vet and it works very well for that purpose. It is made for humans, though.
No pillows are given in shelters, if you need one, bring it. You may not be happy with the blankets either, but you have to decide how much you can carry and what space there will be for what you bring. If you are simply evacuating, the space in your vehicle or on your back is the limiting factor.
At least a change of underwear and socks is a good idea, and an entire change of clothes per person, if you can manage it. I find it helpful to pick my backpack to be used as a go bag and actually pack it to help decide what to leave out. You have probably already noticed that suggested items could fill up a huge vehicle and leave no room in it for people if you were to take them all. It will definitely be necessary to prioritize what to bring.
I lightly pencil in priority numbers on a printed list and start with the top ones and work my way down. Checking to see what will fit in your go bag periodically is very useful. Checking to see what you can actually comfortably carry and still walk is also useful.
Here are a couple of links to Red Cross pages of a supply list and a print out of emergency contact cards for all family members to have with them at all times. Emergencies are rarely conveniently scheduled for when you have everything you need handy.
Red Cross PDF supplies suggestions
Red Cross PDF Family Emergency contact cards to print out for each family member
No supplies are much use unless you are able to use them. I suggest you and your family practice. I will blog about that too.
You Can Prepare For Disasters
There is not so much need to worry about what will happen in a disaster if you plan for what you will do and prepare for it. It is not a really difficult thing to do if you find out what you will need and break down what you need to have and do to get ready.
There are several government agencies and nonprofits that have information available to the public about what to do in a disaster. I will provide links to some of them in this blog post.
There are two main ways to deal with a disaster. One is to evacuate to a safer place, perhaps a shelter that has been set up for people who have been evacuated. The other is to stay put and "shelter in place". If local authorities tell you that it is necessary to evacuate, you need to pay attention to them and evacuate. People who do not do this often end up dead. If you are told that it is ok to stay put and take shelter in your home, then you can shelter in place.
I believe the most important thing for you to have when a disaster happens is information. You need to know that the disaster has happened, what kind of disaster it is and whether the local authorities want you to evacuate. If you need to evacuate, you need to know where your shelter will be and safe ways to get to it. The emergency alert system tests that stop your radio and TV programs are to make sure the system works right in a disaster. The regular stations will stop normal broadcasting during an emergency alert and tell you where to tune in to find out what you need to know about the emergency.
There are many kinds of disasters and it can be overwhelming if you think you have to prepare for all of them at once. Relax, you do not need to do everything at once. There are certain things you will need in almost any disaster that are the same. Once you look at lists of disaster preparedness items you will see that once you are ready for one kind of disaster, you will be mostly ready for most other types of disasters.
The lists on the sites I am giving you links to are very comprehensive. They are meant to cover what many different people and families might need. Every person and every family is different. You and your family will probably not need everything on the list. You can start with what you think is most important. and work your way down to the less important and things you may not need at all.
If your time and budget are limited, you can prepare just a little bit at a time. You can start with being prepared for a disaster that lasts only a few hours and work your way toward longer term ones. One meal at a time for you and your family to be able to eat during a disaster is ok as a starting place. Next you can prepare for a whole day and then three days, and so on.
I would like to suggest that you prepare a "go bag" first. This is a package that you can easily carry, backpacks are good, in case you are in a disaster where you have to evacuate. The sites I will give you links to will have lists of suggested items for go bags. There may be items not listed that you will want in your go bag and the go bags for your family. Again, go bags are as different as the people who make them. You will probably not need everything on the go bag list.
Here are some sites with information about preparing for disasters and lists of suggested items for preparedness for go bags and sheltering in place:
This link to FEMA explains about Go Bags
This is FEMAs list of basic supplies.
PDF short basic list of supplies
This link has FEMAs ideas for making your disaster plan.
FEMAs ideas for plans depending on where you are when a disaster happens.
FEMAs in depth guide to preparedness
The list of preparedness supplies starts on page 31 in the last link. You will probably not want to start right off with FEMAs in depth guide to preparedness, because it is very long and has a lot of information to digest, but you can copy it and maybe print it out so you can get ready to read it later. Don't postpone this indefinitely, though. Most of us like to procrastinate and that can be fatal. This needs to be a priority for everyone. You could die if you are not ready to evacuate and have to run around grabbing things and looking for them at the last minute. Avoid that by being prepared.
I am going to do another post, or several, on other disaster preparedness sites because this one is getting too long. I want to make this easy to read for people who are not used to preparedness.
There are several government agencies and nonprofits that have information available to the public about what to do in a disaster. I will provide links to some of them in this blog post.
There are two main ways to deal with a disaster. One is to evacuate to a safer place, perhaps a shelter that has been set up for people who have been evacuated. The other is to stay put and "shelter in place". If local authorities tell you that it is necessary to evacuate, you need to pay attention to them and evacuate. People who do not do this often end up dead. If you are told that it is ok to stay put and take shelter in your home, then you can shelter in place.
I believe the most important thing for you to have when a disaster happens is information. You need to know that the disaster has happened, what kind of disaster it is and whether the local authorities want you to evacuate. If you need to evacuate, you need to know where your shelter will be and safe ways to get to it. The emergency alert system tests that stop your radio and TV programs are to make sure the system works right in a disaster. The regular stations will stop normal broadcasting during an emergency alert and tell you where to tune in to find out what you need to know about the emergency.
There are many kinds of disasters and it can be overwhelming if you think you have to prepare for all of them at once. Relax, you do not need to do everything at once. There are certain things you will need in almost any disaster that are the same. Once you look at lists of disaster preparedness items you will see that once you are ready for one kind of disaster, you will be mostly ready for most other types of disasters.
The lists on the sites I am giving you links to are very comprehensive. They are meant to cover what many different people and families might need. Every person and every family is different. You and your family will probably not need everything on the list. You can start with what you think is most important. and work your way down to the less important and things you may not need at all.
If your time and budget are limited, you can prepare just a little bit at a time. You can start with being prepared for a disaster that lasts only a few hours and work your way toward longer term ones. One meal at a time for you and your family to be able to eat during a disaster is ok as a starting place. Next you can prepare for a whole day and then three days, and so on.
I would like to suggest that you prepare a "go bag" first. This is a package that you can easily carry, backpacks are good, in case you are in a disaster where you have to evacuate. The sites I will give you links to will have lists of suggested items for go bags. There may be items not listed that you will want in your go bag and the go bags for your family. Again, go bags are as different as the people who make them. You will probably not need everything on the go bag list.
Here are some sites with information about preparing for disasters and lists of suggested items for preparedness for go bags and sheltering in place:
This link to FEMA explains about Go Bags
This is FEMAs list of basic supplies.
PDF short basic list of supplies
This link has FEMAs ideas for making your disaster plan.
FEMAs ideas for plans depending on where you are when a disaster happens.
FEMAs in depth guide to preparedness
The list of preparedness supplies starts on page 31 in the last link. You will probably not want to start right off with FEMAs in depth guide to preparedness, because it is very long and has a lot of information to digest, but you can copy it and maybe print it out so you can get ready to read it later. Don't postpone this indefinitely, though. Most of us like to procrastinate and that can be fatal. This needs to be a priority for everyone. You could die if you are not ready to evacuate and have to run around grabbing things and looking for them at the last minute. Avoid that by being prepared.
I am going to do another post, or several, on other disaster preparedness sites because this one is getting too long. I want to make this easy to read for people who are not used to preparedness.
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