Resolve to Be Ready 2014

If you are a regular reader of our blog, you will know that Emergency  Planning and Preparedness is important to me.  If you are new to this blog, welcome;  Emergency Planning and Preparedness is important to me!

Even though it is important to me, I don’t feel prepared.  You see, we lost our home in a wildfire in October 2007.  And, in October 2007, we were not prepared.  At all.  We had done nothing to be pro-active in the event of an emergency.  So, we were left feeling blindsided.

A quick sidebar:  if you want to read “our story”, I wrote a 20-part series in 2012, the 5th anniversary of the loss of our home.  You can read that series by clicking on this link, Any Way the Wind Blows, which will take you to the beginning.  You can also find the entire series in our Archives – By Category, which is located under the “New? Start Here” tab at the top left of our blog’s menu bar.

Anyway, part of that 20-page series is a 12-page Emergency Planning Checklist that I created using various sources available on the web.  Using my own Emergency Planning Checklist that I created a year and half ago, I vowed to myself to not be blindsided again.

Here’s the thing:  even though I created this checklist and vowed to complete it, in a year and a half’s time, I’m not done!  Nope; me, the person {me} really emotionally invested in this project, not done!

How can I not be done?  Well, being “ready” is a huge commitment of time and money.  I’ve picked away at this project over the last year and a half, so I feel that I’m more ready than most, but I’m not done.

So, I’m joining FEMA’s “Resolve to Be Ready in 2014” campaign!  This campaign, created by FEMA, is to help people help themselves be more prepared in the event of a disaster.  And, I’ve made a personal commitment to myself to continue to pick away at this project and get it done!

 

Why?

In just the last 90-days in our country, here’s what has happened:

• October 27-28, 2013:  flooding in Alaska due to storms
• October 30-31, 2013:  flooding in Texas due to severe storms
• November 17, 2013:  tornadoes in Illinois and Indiana
• December 5-6, 2013:  severe storms in Arkansas
• December 25, 2013:  4.2 earthquake in Campo, California (my backyard; I mentioned it in 42 Christmas Decorations and Holiday Items for Your Home)
• December 30, 2013:  train derailment in Casselton, North Dakota (the entire town was encouraged to evacuate)
• January 3, 2014:  subfreezing temperatures in Chicago
• January 7, 2014:  Polar Vortex hits the Great Lakes Region
• January 9, 2014:  chemical spill in West Virginia
• January 16, 2014:   Colby fire in California
• January 20, 2014:  the return of the Polar Vortex

In addition, in December 2013 (a month ago) federal funding of over $700,000,000 was approved for 270 public assistance projects in New York State because of Hurricane Sandy, which happened in October of 2012; more than a year ago!

It takes years for families to recover from a catastrophic disaster.  It takes years for a business to recover from a catastrophic disaster.  It takes years for a government to recover from a catastrophic disaster.  Some never recover…

I’m not going to take the time to report on the above disasters, both natural and man-made.  You can find more information on-line than I could ever share with you!  And, I’m sure that my list above is not complete; these are just the ones that I’ve heard about through my normal news day activity.  Although you may think I am, I’m not one that tracks disasters intentionally!  I don’t subscribe to any news services, weather services or even FEMA’s website.  I’m aware of these events because of catching the news on the fringes of my very busy daily life!

But, the point of sharing that 90-day list with you is to point out that each disaster is different, each disaster impacts hundreds and thousands of people and while we can’t prepare for every potential disaster, being even somewhat prepared as opposed to not prepared at all (like we were in 2007), will give you a slight advantage in weathering the storm (no pun intended!).

Here’s what I plan to do:  on the 22nd of each month on our blog, I will do a post about Emergency Planning and Preparedness.  For the most part, that post will complement a project from my Emergency Planning Checklist with the goal to move through this checklist over the next two years.  Why so long?  Some of the projects are quite lengthy and to accomplish them with any modicum of success will require breaking them up into smaller, bite-size, components.

How to you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.

Plus, if I share an extremely long project on this blog with a target completion date of 30 days (until the next blog post on another subject), what do you think I will be doing to me and to you, the participating reader?  I’m setting us up for failure.  It is not my goal to fail on this project, so longer components of creating an Emergency Plan will be broken up into smaller chunks.  Both you and I are more likely to do smaller projects within a 30-day period as opposed to a larger giant project.

On second thought, this project may take us 3 years {grin} to complete!  But, even if it takes 3 years, every successive, completed step puts me and you, the participating reader, in a better position of emergency preparedness than either of us was before!  A win-win; even if it takes 3 years!

So, let’s start this way – between now and February 22, 2014, let’s both do the following:

1. Purchase a 3-ring binder OR commandeer one that you already have lying around your house.
2. Purchase a package of letter-sized sheet protectors that have 3 holes to fit in a 3-ring binder.
3. Print out my Emergency Planning Checklist, read it and put it in your 3-ring binder.
4. Print out these two checklists from FEMA:  Family Communication Plan for Kids and Family Communication Plan for Parents.  Put these in your binder.
5. Start a fund designated for purchasing emergency supplies.  Do it starting now!  Yes, right now!  You will need money to finish this project because it is doubtful that you will have money set aside that you can spare from your budget to get some of these projects completed.  If you do, kudos to you!  If you don’t, try saving this money using my Saving Mr. Lincoln strategy which you can read here, here, here (there are 12 posts so far!).
6. If you have a Pinterest account, create an Emergency Planning and Preparedness board and pin one or all the pictures in this post to your board.  That will bookmark this post for you (except for the FEMA one, which will bookmark it to the FEMA site) and you’ll be able to come back to this post for reference.  Plus, we’ll add stuff to our Pinterest board along the way.  If you don’t have a Pinterest account, create one.  It’s fun and easy to use Pinterest and it will be a great tool for this project!  Here’s a link to Toot Sweet 4 Two’s Emergency Planning and Preparedness board:  Resolve to Be Ready 2014.

Six simple easy steps that you can do today!  Here’s the Pinterest pin I’ve created for your Pinterest board:

So, join me and Resolve To Be Ready 2014!  And, check back on February 22nd to join me in the next step.

Tootles,

 

Related Posts:

(other posts about Emergency Planning and Preparedness)

• 14 Human Needs
• Aftermath
• Any Way the Wind Blows
• Counting Our Blessings
• Emergency Planning Checklist
• Home Safety Quiz {Sponsored Post}
• Hurricane Sandy
• In the Midnight Hours
• Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
• Replacing Your Important Papers After a Disaster
• The Fire Drill
• Tornado Alley
• What’s in Your First Aid Kit?
• Wildfire Season:  Are You Ready?