Writing « Robin Writes

I came across this link yesterday where you can check just how prepared you are for SHTF. I didn’t score too badly, but there’s always room for improvement!

National Geographic Doomsday Preppers

The best part is that it breaks it down into water, food, fuel, supplies, protection, communication. So you can see exactly where you stand, and what you need to work on next. And it’s not just about what you have stockpiled, but includes access – like how close you live or will bug out to a water source. Something else to keep in mind . . .

Some of you may have seen my Facebook posts about being caught without Advil – don’t forget those “nice but not necessary” items (although for me, Advil IS a necessity!). For instance, I’m totally addicted to General Foods International Coffee. Or maybe it’s General Mills. Anyway, yes, I stock up on that, the orange cappuccino specifically. Without that, it might look like the zombie apocalypse around here . . .

Back to prepping, for real: take the quiz, pick the most important area – I’d say water, to start – and work on that exclusively until you’re where you need to be. Then move on to the next, and so on and on.

It’s good to have a plan, and to break it down into parts so it’s not so overwhelming. And it’s much, much better to have that plan and to work it before SHTF, rather than during. Or after. And one more thing: there may not ever be a widespread SHTF situation, but there could easily be smaller ones that effect you and your family, like hurricane, tornado, blackout, market crash, and on and on.

Yeah, yeah, I’m running behind. Shocker, yes? Ha.

I had a topic, but it will have to wait for another time since I didn’t have a chance to finish my research and besides, I’m in a hurry to get this posted before I forget. Again.

With all the news of the Colorado floods, I decided to mention, once more, how important prepping is for EVERYone. I have family out there, my mom and her husband live in a small mountain town that was almost completely cut off from everywhere else. They were evacuating folks in choppers – heh – and the local Safeway, fortunately, got in a delivery after a couple days. Mom said she had to run down there and see if they had jugs of water.

I, of course, pointed out that, if she’d stocked up on a few things, she wouldn’t have to worry or even to go out and try to navigate closed roads, traffic, mud, and, well, water. I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures online.

Besides regular, basic supplies running low, there was no landline service OR cell phone coverage for three or four days. None. Nada. Once in a while, someone could get a call through inside the town itself, but nothing to the outside. One road open, and being it’s September, that could close at any time – due to snow.

Now, we all don’t or can’t keep walkies or shortwave radios around, but it’s definitely something to consider. Oddly, the town had Internet access, so email was working . But communication, timely communication, is key.

Most of us don’t live in areas that could or would be completely cut off from civilization, but you might want to reconsider that – after all, half a dozen roads out there were covered with water or had collapsed. That’s ALL of them. You wouldn’t think, say, here in St. Louis, that all the bridges over the Mississippi or Missouri rivers would be closed at the same time, or that all the major highways would collapse. Probably not.

But isn’t it better, and less stressful in the long run, in a just-in-case way, to be ready? To have alternate methods of communication, to have basic necessities for a few days? The point is that basic stuff should be at-hand all the time – in case of flood, fire, or collapse.

People always seem to think that it won’t happen to them, or that, if it does, things will just magically work out. I hope it does work out. But if not, well, there’s prepping.