Being Unprepared for a Hurricane
Hi friends! It's Monday! I'm ready for a good week...how about you?
This weekend was a crazy one. Hurricane Irene blasted the East coast in a terrifying, crazy, harrowing storm.
Luckily, Shaun and I were safely tucked away at his brother Steven's wedding in Wilmington, Delaware. Though DE got hit, the hotel was like a bunker...so we were pretty safe for Saturday and Sunday.
But when we arrived home, it was clear that we were beyond unprepared for the storm. While we were lucky enough to not have any damage to our condo or experience flooding on our drive home, our building had lost power and we were told that it could be a week (week!) before it returned.
Why I felt unprepared:
I only had a smattering of scented candles on hand, instead of a real back-up lighting source. I thought this would be enough for any possible emergency. Oh how wrong and naive I was. Not only was this not enough, it was not even close to what we'd need, lighting-wise. Once the darkness fell, we realized that it would be much more beneficial to have large pillared, unscented candles to get us through. And what we really wanted was an oil lamp.
Lack of batteries. We have a really nice flashlight...but it's only one flashlight. And we only had one set of batteries for said flashlight. Not great if you're stuck for a few days and all of your stores are sold out of batteries.
We only had two gallons of water on hand. Though we didn't lose water, it was highly possible that we could have. And then we really would have been screwed. Two gallons would get us very far if we were without water for more than a day or two.
I had no ice. We have a cooler on our terrace, which we thought would be great to use for some cold goods. But ice was in seriously short supply. In hindsight, it would really be great to have a big bag of ice in the fridge at all times.
We had limited cash. This really wasn't an issue, but it easily could have been. I never keep cash on hand, but it might not be a bad idea to have a small stash of it for emergencies.
Food. Luckily, I usually keep canned goods and plenty of food on hand, but it was clear that I had little in the way of emergency-ready goods. We had use of the stove, but if we had not, it would have been a tough one. Canned goods, energy bars, nut butters, and frozen bread probably would do the trick.
So with all of this in mind, I felt a little scattered and overall unprepared for such an event. Luckily, our power came back on late last night. I'm now planning to create a full-blown emergency kit should another disaster strike. I'll be sure to keep you posted on my ideas and how I get it done!
Questions of the Day:
How prepared are you for an emergency?
What's in your emergency kit? Or what would you put in your kit?
psst...I'm blogging about my bro-in-law's hurricane wedding over on The Peach & The Pit...hope you'll check it out!
9 Comments | August 29, 2011 | Share Article | Email Article | tagged Weddings, emergency preparedness | Print Article | Permalink
Reader Comments (9)
Glad you are okay and that you have power now. Having no power is the worst thing ever. I am so like you- not prepared one bit except for having enough food on hand. That I have covered. We went through hurricane ike about 3 years ago and it was horrible. We had flooding, no power for 5 days, no water, etc.
I'm totally not prepared for an emergency, but this definitely made me think about it! I'd rather have planned ahead, than have to learn the hard way!
Good to hear your power is back and no major damage. This weekend was definitely a wake up call for a lot of us. I am with you in not being as prepared as I should be. I think if you live in the ny metro area you take for granted how accessible everything is normally. I also think our small apartment make it difficult to keep an emergency supply of food water and supplies. I found www.72 hours.org to be a good resource for planning.
We got so lucky w/ the hurricane here in Portland, Maine. We have power, no trees fell, everything is bright and sunny now. Other mainers had to deal w/o power and flooding...I'm grateful! I only bought 2 canned food items in "preparation" and made sure we had candles...so I got lucky! I'm glad you're okay!
I'm SO not ready for an emergency, which is even more important now, since I'm really limited in what I can eat! I'm thinking I need to make a GF survival kit, even though we pretty much only have earthquakes (knock on wood) in Utah!
we bought a little battery powered lantern to supplement our flashlights after hurricane ike hit us back in 2008. i never thought i'd have to worry about hurricanes in ohio but it just goes to show that they are far reaching and their aftermath can reach pretty much anywhere!
Oh I am glad they still got to get married and you were able to celebrate! We were luckily not affected much by the hurricane. I hope your electricity is back asap!!
Glad things worked out ok for you. We were pretty unprepared too - mostly, I felt very ignorant not knowing what measures to take to prepare. We came through it ok too. Power was down for about 24 hours but it was kind of nice living "au natural" for a bit. We enjoyed some quality family time without TV / computers / etc. :)
i hear ya! in may, nashville was struck by terrible storms + we were without power for days. because of the heat, we eventually had to check into a dog-friendly hotel because the house was becoming 90+ degrees + there was no way we could stay there. we lost everything in our fridge, freezer, etc. except the top of our wedding cake, which my husband frantically drove to the in-laws house to save it. ha! i will say, on a positive note, a big storm makes you realize what's important, + what you can live without, glad y'all are okay!