Emergency Preparedness, what do you do? Are you prepared?

[Guest guest]

In the last 2 weeks people in my area, St Louis, Mo and surrounding

areas were without power for the second time since July. Over 500,000

households were without heat, lights and in some cases, water. It was

catastrophic in scope.

I learned my lesson in the July storms; if you don't have power, the

drug stores and groceries where you get your scripts filled will be

without, too.

I am assembling an emergency " take with me kit " in case we have to

evacuate again. People were not prepared this time either and I'm

sure more fatalities will be discovered.

I thought this might be the venue is which to discuss what you would

do if faced with this nightmare. As chronic pain patients we have a

responsibility to keep ourselves safe and medicated, no matter the

circumstances.

Is it worth discussing what we should put in our kits? What do you

all do when this happens to you?

These storms were no joke. In the summer storms we were without ice

and food because the grocery stores had no power either. My brother

was without power for 11 days, as were others. At this time there are

still people without power.

So I am giving serious thought as to what I should have available to

me next time. I am by nature a planner, but these storms caught me

completely unaware.

500,00 people are without power. That includes groceries, stores,

hospitals and emergency responders. Everything for miles is black:

What would you do??

Deb

in Mo

[Guest guest]

Hey im new here but i to am from St. louis mo, i lived in overland

county. My name is jenifer by the way i would say that you are

completely right in being worried about what your going to do. it can

be a very serious situation there, more so in the summer time with

the rain fall, flooding, and tornados i moved to sioux falls sd so

its really cold and icey right now! your right it is important to be

prepared in all circumstances because it can be life or death in just

a moments time! Jenifer --- In

chronic_pain , " nana2jayde " wrot

>

> In the last 2 weeks people in my area, St Louis, Mo and surrounding

> areas were without power for the second time since July. Over

500,000

> households were without heat, lights and in some cases, water. It

was

> catastrophic in scope.

>

> I learned my lesson in the July storms; if you don't have power,

the

> drug stores and groceries where you get your scripts filled will be

> without, too.

>

> I am assembling an emergency " take with me kit " in case we have to

> evacuate again. People were not prepared this time either and I'm

> sure more fatalities will be discovered.

>

> I thought this might be the venue is which to discuss what you

would

> do if faced with this nightmare. As chronic pain patients we have a

> responsibility to keep ourselves safe and medicated, no matter the

> circumstances.

>

> Is it worth discussing what we should put in our kits? What do you

> all do when this happens to you?

>

> These storms were no joke. In the summer storms we were without

ice

> and food because the grocery stores had no power either. My brother

> was without power for 11 days, as were others. At this time there

are

> still people without power.

>

> So I am giving serious thought as to what I should have available

to

> me next time. I am by nature a planner, but these storms caught me

> completely unaware.

>

> 500,00 people are without power. That includes groceries, stores,

> hospitals and emergency responders. Everything for miles is black:

>

> What would you do??

>

> Deb

> in Mo

>

[Guest guest]

Here in the Buffalo ,NY area we had a great wake up

call for being prepared this past October

( to see some pics check out my web site on the nature

photography page - the links in my sig below )

We were hit with a freak snow storm (well for Buffalo

in october that is ).

We were with out power for 7 days 49 minutes in our

house.

Now almost every year we loose power for a few hours

up to a couple days due to snow storms . This is the

1st storm I've been through in the last 30 years here

that we were without for this long (spring of 1976

last big one).

We always have a good supply of dried and canned food

here but we didn't have enough candles or batteries

for the radios and flashlights like we should have had

, so you can imagine the ordeal we had as far as

finding them.

It was lucky a cashier in Target had mentioned to us

that they would be getting a new truckload of

batteries in that night to be put out for the stores

opening in the morning.

I got there 15 minutes before the store opened and

even though there wasn't more than 10 people in front

of me 7 cases were gone by the time I got to the

battery display area ( I don't walk very fast LOL ).

Now when I got here there was only 4 packages of D

cells left (4/pack) and a woman was walking away with

a shopping cart litterally full of them .

I only needed 8 batteries to take care of my radio and

2 flash lights so I picked up 3 of the 4 packs and

left the last one so some other soul might be able to

pick them up.

When I got to the check out the woman with the full

cart of them was in front of me.

The cashier wrung up 25 packages of the D cells and

remarked to the lady " are you buying for the

neighborhood? " and the woman got pretty nasty with her

and said

" No , I need to be prepared and I'm not going to be

stuck with out flashlights or my radio and I will NEED

them all "

I asked her " how many radios and flashlight do you

have " and she was obviously POd now and told me to

mind my own business.

I just said then " its too bad people like you don't

only take what you need and leave some for the next

person "

her answer with a smirk was

" God helps those who help themselves "

Quite frankly I was shocked at that one LOL

but she was right to a certain extent.

As we sat eating dinner by candle light that night ,

we were toying with the idea of buying a generator but

they were already sold out within a 2 hour drive .

I know from using them at work that the small ones

need so much maintainence that I told the wife we

would sit this storm out and look for a deal on one

later .

I didn't expect it to last 7 days though and by the last

day the wife was about to kill me for not getting one.

This coming spring we'll have a natural gas one

installed in our house that can power the whole house

and kicks on after a power outage of 30 seconds.

Luckly we had our gas for hot water and cooking ,

although the furnace didn't work

For now are keeping an extra few packages of candles

and batteries around too.

Everyone should sit down and really think about what

they would need for a week or so with out power and

stock up.

I now keep an extra weeks supply of all my meds in a

bottle too - just in case.

Every 3 months I will rotate those and replace them

from my newest scripts

I hope your looking at a pain free day

Jim