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Do-It-Yourself Preparedness
Some People Worry others Prepare!
Do-It-Yourself Preparedness is an ancient concept. Historically, people in most cultures have naturally assumed the responsibility of taking care of themselves which included preparing for difficult times by stocking up and thinking ahead to what natural or man-made disasters might befall their family. This is Do-It-Yourself preparedness. The Do-It-Yourself part comes in when each family or individual works toward self-sufficiency when it comes to preparedness.
The Red Cross was founded over a century ago to help relieve the suffering resulting from natural disasters and war. Later came other government agencies such as FEMA and Homeland Security. These agencies were never intended to replace or usurp the Do-It-Yourself Preparedness concept. Somewhere along the line people began to assume the government would be able to take care of them if a disaster happened. As taxes rose, they felt the government should take care of them. Do-It-Yourself Preparedness fell out of vogue.
We have all seen from the disaster of Hurricane Katrina that the government is not able to even come close to taking care of people as well as they can take care of themselves with a little prior planning. Do-It-Yourself Preparedness is now the need of the hour.
Do-It-Yourself Preparedness is as simple as it sounds. The first step is to determine what areas need to be considered when preparing for emergencies. If you were suddenly without electricity, what basics would you need in order to keep going? If disaster threatened to strike your area and you had to evacuate quickly, what would you take with you?
Water is the most important element to plan for in an emergency. How are you going to insure that you have good quality, adequate drinking water? Historically, more people die from drinking bad water than from the effects of the disaster itself. The following are several options: Store one gallon of water/day per person and replenish it every six months. Have a bottle of Potable Aqua for treating water if you have to evacuate. Purchase a lightweight MSR water filter to provide clean water if you need to be on the move or an Aqua Rain gravity feed water filter for unlimited pure drinking water at home. DIY preparedness means looking ahead and taking simple steps to meet your basic needs before an emergency happens.
Food is the next area to consider. Keep your pantry stocked with extra canned food that you enjoy eating. Buy an extra can of the foods you normally eat each week and set it aside in your pantry. Staples such as noodles, rice, beans flour, powered milk and olive oil store well. Purchase a 3-day supply of no cook entrees from AlpineAire, in pouches for possible evacuation or in cans for your home (preferably both). The DIY Preparedness approach means start simple and build up your supplies as your budget allows.
Another important area to plan ahead for is light. Have flashlights on hand that don't require batteries such as wind-up flashlights or shake-up flashlights. This is so simple to do yet how many of us still struggle with trying to see with flashlights with dying batteries or dead bulbs. Candles are inexpensive and foolproof when bright light is not required. Kerosene lamps provide brighter light and are available in any hardware store. Get prepared today in this area.
One final area that is important to consider in your Do-It-Yourself preparations is having a solar or wind-up radio. This will insure that you can keep abreast of what's happening in your area. You can listen to emergency broadcasts that will tell you when it's safe to return to your home if you had to evacuate or find out when the electricity will be restored in a power outage. Relying on batteries being fresh in an emergency is not a good idea and standard electric radios will likely be useless.
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