Quote:
Originally Posted by createquilts
Remember Katrina, when within two days people were on roofs with signs no food, no diapers, send help? Perhaps we would all be well advised to be prepared for whatever disaster is likely to impact us- bad storms or a disruption in the supply lines of food in this area. Tornados, earthquakes and hurricanes can wreak havoc and being prepared for whatever is likely to happen in your area is sensible. Such as having a week of water and food, a way to heat food, getting messages out.
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I echo exactly what you state above. It doesn't have to be a world wide catastrophe........even a local one would be hard.
We had an October ice storm when everything in town just came to a halt.
The heavy ice on the foliage laden trees was just too much for them to bear and they were cracking and falling all over town and on the roads exiting town.
Since we had a Jeep four wheel drive, my husband towed several neighbors to where they wanted to go.......they couldn't get up the icy hills.......one guy was trying to meet his limo to the airport........
Meanwhile, my son's high school teacher called to have me call all the parents to cancel the study group for their SAT tests.......he was stranded on his dirt road and couldn't get to town to the high school........
Trees down, power lines down.........I was able to make a few calls at the most before we lost our power. People were actually killed when falling trees fell on them while they were just on their front porches.
This was OCTOBER.........not the dead of winter, but people didn't have hot showers, didn't have HEAT , couldn't cook.........the ones who were prepared like us.....managed fine. Others we helped.
Since we had a kitchen wood stove plus a fireplace in the living room plus two furnaces in the basement (an oil furnace and a wood furnace as an alternate source of heat) we were toasty warm.......
The woodstove was a small Jotul and had cooking burners on top; it was on a red brick hearth.......came in handy for cooking. We also have camp stoves to cook on if need be........in that other great room we had a Jenn Aire electric grill, but didn't do us any good as we had no electric.
My husband made hot cocoa, coffee and hot oatmeal and brought it around to those with children or the elderly neighbors who were close to us. These people didn't know what to do. We could also boil soup, etc.
Within a few days, our other neighbor who worked for the power company as a lineman was the most popular guy in our neighborhood when he came around and turned back on all of our electricity by climbing the poles...........this only after two days without.
I can't even imagine what those poor Katrina victims went through in the heat and flooding with no water, no food, no airconditioning, no diapers, no diabetes meds, etc...........better to be prepared.
To us it is intelligent to do so........we don't believe in putting our heads in the sand. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being prepared.
Now, going to the extremes like those on the preppers show.......again, I would not live in a bunker below the ground.
However, imagine if there was a really bad hurricane like Andrew was.
I still remember pics of those people standing in long lines for water and ice...........a couple whose roof blew off in Andrew bought our Vermont home.........she was traumatized for sure by that storm. Supermarkets would NOT BE FUNCTIONING.