Our Emergency Preparedness Plan Should Include Survival Food and Potable Water

by teddletonmr

Do not wait until after a natural disaster, thunderstorm or tornado to strike before you make a plan. Follow these easy steps to an emergency preparedness plan that includes...

I dare say you like me; seldom give little thought to planning for an emergency or natural disaster. That is of course until we wake-up to the sounds of a thunderstorm or is it a tornado? With the wind blowing down tall trees, and thunder rattling the windows it is hard to tell. At any rate, our first instinct is to look at the alarm clock on the nightstand. Where we soon discover the power is out. Wondering just how long the power has been off, what time is it anyway, and what in the hell is going on, when suddenly as on cue, the cell phone rings. Answering it, we discover a panic-stricken voice of a close family friend, asking as though fearing the worse, is everyone ok. Not until times like these do we truly realize just how important developing. Our emergency preparedness plan should include survival food, water and shelter really is to ensuring our family safety and wellbeing.

Failing to plan

Failing to plan is planning to fail, a modern day proverb widely attributed to Alan Lakein.

Many people today are quite simply accustomed to, more to the point, entirely dependent on all their hi-tech gadgetry to keep them on top of what is going on. Awakening to a power outage, no phone service or worse yet no cable TV and internet connection suddenly find themselves at a loss. How anyone to know what is going on in the world, what happened or what he or she should do at times like these? Become difficult questions to answer when our iPhone or android phone battery dies, we get one of those all circuits are busy messages, or there is no cell phone service. Adding credence to the proverb, failing to plan is planning to fail.

Emergency preparedness plan to communicate

no power or phone service I believe we all agree, charging or replacing a dead cell phone battery is easy enough. However, phone lines down and no cell phone service leaves us with a whole other set of challenges. For instance, with our just in time way of doing things, we have no food. No potable drinking water and the house is in the dark. We are in for a world of hurt. Without a way to communicate, at least a way to find out what is going on and where to get the survival supplies we need.

 

What is potable water?  Potable water is clean water suitable for cooking or drinking.

Communication solution

At a minimum, we should keep on hand.

1. Portable NOAA weather radio my best pick, the Oregon Scientific WR602 weather radio

2. Tactical flashlight, my absolute best Pick is the Surefire E2D Defender with extra batteries, expensive yes, and worth every penny.

3. Handheld portable scanner, my best pick, the Uniden BC72XLT

4. Portable handheld CB radio, my best pick, the Cobra HHROADTRIP 40 channel CB radio.

Emergency Preparedness Plan Survival Food & Water

Food and good clean drinking water I believe we will all agree is extremely important things we must have. Think about this for a moment. The rule of three, which is to say, in an extreme survival situation, a healthy human being can survive for three minutes without breathable air, three days without drinkable water and three weeks without food before we die.

I do not know about you, personally, I would rather not test that rule of three. Actually, I do not much like fasting for twelve hours before having lab work done my Dr. insists is for my own good. Tell you what lets discuss survival foods we should keep on hand in case of an emergency and forget about not breathing, doing without water or starving to death.

Survival Food

Many vegetable gardeners today, can food at its peak freshness locking in all the fresh harvested goodness. These foods are great survival foods and do not require freezing or refrigeration for long-term storage, say 12 or so months. Packed in boiled water killing any bacteria that would make someone sick, canned foods such as tomatoes, green beans or sweet corn for that matter provide nutritious food and provide water for cooking. Think of can food as a good way to rehydrate, and replenish nutrients loss due to exertion and the stresses of an emergency or natural disaster.

On the other hand, many of us do not can our own foods. However, our local neighborhood grocery store keeps a wide variety of canned food. Complementing canned vegetables, let us not forget about canned meat and fish. Spam, tuna fish, salmon and mackerel or sardines are great shelf stable foods that make great survival food.

Sure, there are several types of dehydrated, vacuum-packed foods, MREs come to mind that are a favorite of many survivalist. The thing to keep in mind, when the kids or a meticulous eater does not like it, they absolutely will not eat the stuff adding to the stresses, and anxieties, I believe we all agree is a bad thing. Please whatever you do, do yourself and family a huge favor; do not get something no one will want to eat. Remember, sooner or later someone will want to have a good hot meal, and a full belly is a happy belly.      

 

Emergency preparedness plan - Cooking without gas or electric cooktop

All too frequently, people who live in rural areas during severe weather events find themselves cut off from the rest of the civilized world. Roads closed due to flooding, winter weather with icy roads, drifting snow and power outages. Has a way of making modern day country folks, forced to return to the ole timey ways of living. As you can imagine no electric power-to-power lights, water heater, and no working landline phones make live a bit more challenging. Shoot on the best days, the internet, satellite TV, and cell phone service is iffy at best. During and after bad weather, these modern conveniences are always down for several hours, days or even weeks.

Sure peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and eating all the leftover mac and cheese in the fridge are good for the short-term hunger pains for the kiddos. However eventually we all need to cook something, boil water for cleaning or simply bathing and brushing ones teeth is important. Forget about using the microwave, electric stove shoot even the new gas cooktops will not work without electric power.

What will work when the power is out, running out to the local fast-food restaurant is not an option and the family needs a hot meal? Sure, the BBQ grill will work for grilling meats, fish and vegetables but boiling water for cleaning not so much. The better option, an LP gas cooker, one like the camp chef explorer series EX-60 two burner will work well for boiling water, cooking soups and stews or with the optional griddle make fixing pan cakes or grilled cheese sandwiches quick and easy.

 

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You do Need a Disaster plan !

Cooking outdoors and Power outage

Updated: 03/09/2012, teddletonmr
 
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teddletonmr on 03/09/2012

@Wendell, welcome to wizzley. The wife, kids and me were without power for more than a week a few years ago after a tornado came through our small town.
Everything was shut down, no Mcdonnalds, no power, no phone, no tv and the cell phones were prone to that all Circuits are busy thing for several hours. The tower was distroyed as we were later told. It is a scary thing when the national guard is keeping watch and directing traffic at check points in your hometown.
Be well, and enjoy the sunshine. Mike

Wendell on 03/09/2012

Some very good suggestions here.

I suspect most of us begin to think in terms of survival being 24 to 72 hours. But what if the need was for a longer period of time?

What if the electrical grid was knocked out so you couldn't access your bank account or put gas in your vehicle?

Very timely article.

teddletonmr on 03/05/2012

Verry good points Katie and Lissie, a good pair of sturdy shoes and a good flashlight when disaster strikes in the middle of the night, or during times of extended power outages..

katiem2 on 03/05/2012

Great ideas on what we should have on hand, I do feel food is important as well given I have young children and they always need to eat. I'd hate to think of them going without food. Given the recent tornadoes we never know what we may be up against. Food and Water seems to be immediate needs as well good shoes, that's a really good point, something to walk around all that debris.

teddletonmr on 01/26/2012

Yes I am reminded of the rule of three, we can go three minutes without air, three days without drinking water and three weeks without food.
However, many folks find food a comfort.
Lissie thanks for sharing your insights. By the way I have always wanted to visit your neck of the wood.
Best wishes, Mike

Lissie on 01/26/2012

The comment I've had over and over who were caught in Christchurch's earthquakes was - you need a good torch and a decent shoes to hand - ie near your bed! The focus on food I don't buy into - most of us wouldn't die if we fasted for the next 4 weeks! A battery powered radio is handy, and you should have some water - but food - not so much!

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