Disaster Preparedness
My daughters and I live in Texas. As you may remember, February of 2021 our state experienced an unprecedented freeze and many of us were left without power in homes that were built to keep heat out, not in. In the end, 210 people died. Since the storm, disaster preparedness has been top of mind.
Being a Girl Scout myself, I felt I was somewhat prepared. We cooked food on our camping grill and I had plenty of home canned food that didn’t need refrigerating. Plus, I had been through a couple of hurricanes by this point and I knew what precautions to take when we saw that bad weather on the horizon. Yet after all was said and done, I knew there was still much more I could do to better prepare. Ultimately, I would love to be more, if not completely self-sufficient, but that will have to come in time. For now, here is what we are doing.
If you read through this list and realize you’re already pretty prepared with the basics, but you want to ramp it up, check out the Survival Sanctuary. It is an extremely detailed disaster preparedness manual. Learn everything you need to know to be completely self-sufficient. The plans outlined are universal, inexpensive, and long-lasting. I can’t wait until we are in a position to put some of these things into place.
Food Preparedness
Growing Your Own Food
Our current living situation does not really provide us the space to grow our own food. Though I know that square foot gardening or vertical gardening might be an option worth exploring. The ultimate dream would be to have our own vegetable garden we pick dinner from each night.
If you are looking to start your garden, here are some books that come highly recommended:
This only touches on gardening, but of course if you have land available providing you own food could include raising chickens and larger livestock, but starting with gardening might be the easiest place.
Again, if you want a deep dive into square foot, vertical, or other types of gardening, check out the Survival Sanctuary. Right now, when you purchase the manual, one of the free bonuses included is “The Shoebox Garden” which shows how to create a food supply in a garden the size of a shoebox.
Preserving Food
If you are a frequent reader of the blog, you already know I am a huge fan of canning. What started out as a fun hobby for me, quickly became something I knew could help in my newfound interest in disaster preparedness.
Early on during the pandemic, we saw disruptions in the food chain as workers were unable to pick fruits and vegetables, unable to process meat, and unavailable to transport what WAS ready for distribution. It doesn’t take much to put a kink in the system as we’ve seen time and time again. Canning and other means of food preservation are wonderful skills to have so you know your family has enough should there be an issue with our food supply. As we go along, we will explore other means of food preservation such as dehydrating and freeze drying. Stay tuned.
If you aren’t in a place to preserve everything yourself, maybe look into these Emergency Food Supply buckets. They offer different options for serving sizes so you can choose what will work best for your family. Be sure to look at how you are to consume the foods inside, so you will have whatever you need to prepare it. For example, you don’t NEED hot water to reconstitute things, but it might be more enjoyable if you have a single burner to heat it.
Related Post: What is Home Canning – An Introduction to the Basics
Safe Drinking Water
Water is the essence of life. It’s often said that the average human can only last 3 days without water, though there may be outliers. Whatever the case, it’s not something I want to test, myself. Are you prepared if an issue arises with the local water? This is an area that I know we need to beef up in our prepping.
One of the items I’ve been looking at getting for each of us are these Personal Water Filtration Systems. The size is appealing as it could fit in each of our own bags. Of course, if you wanted a larger capacity option the Life Straw with Gravity Bag is a good option.
The Survival Sanctuary teaches how to dig your own water well, stash hundreds of gallons of water, make water safe to drink, and collect and store rain water. If you are looking to go off-grid this is the place to start.
Self Contained Electricity
Another area I noticed we were severely lacking in our disaster preparedness was portable electricity. I had a small power bank that helped to charge up our phones, but it didn’t last long considering we were without power for 5 days. Soon after, I began looking at power banks that can hold substantially more power as well as solar panels that connect to generate power.
The one I am currently eyeing is the Goal Zero Yeti 500 with the Solar Panels. It’s an investment, to be sure, but even having it to power up a small heater for a few minutes during the freeze would have been worth it.
A friend posted that her family bought this power bank after the freeze and along with it bought this Mini Air Conditioner (which is actually more of a swamp cooler). Quickly following suit, I picked one of those up for us to add to our supplies. Having also been without AC in Texas, I know how awful it is, and even this small device sounded like it would be a god-send in that situation.
Currently we live in a condo, so external solar panels and a more substantial power bank system are not feasible. However, someday I’d like to be able to have a much larger setup. In the Survival Sanctuary, it outlines several ways to generate your own, off-grid power. Solar panels, wind-turbines, and water wheels are just some of the plans covered, and at a fraction of the cost you would spend buying a pre-made option.
Final Thoughts on Disaster Preparedness
This post is nowhere near exhaustive, but I feel it’s a good jumping off point. Food, water, and electricity are the most basic but arguably the most important things to consider when thinking about disaster preparedness. As the blog continues, I will break down each of these sections and examine other topics such as what medicines you should have and what other items are not necessary but definitely helpful.
Lastly, don’t forget to take a look at Survival Sanctuary for a comprehensive manual to fully prepare you to be self-sufficient. The manual itself is an amazing product, but the added bonuses push the offer over the top.
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