Are You Ready?

Hi Ali, we live in Auckland, New Zealand, and after the first earthquake for Christchurch in September 2010, I got a kit together and have a plan. Stranglely I am adding to it after having it for quite a few months now. And my mum had a good idea as I didn't want to remember to change the water reserves every so often, she said to freeze the bottles and then they stay fresh. Still plan and kit still wouldn't help out run a tsunami, just if you are lucky enough to survive it. We are just so lucky to be alive, happy and living on with our daily lives. Cheers,

Ali, Thank you for writing about the earthquake in Japan. I live in Australia and Japan is my home country. Fortunately all my family members are the safe but, after the news, I couldn't do anything but just keep watching the Internet news everyday. I am the survivor of the big earthquake in Kobe Japan 1995. The memories of the disaster flash back in my mind and having difficulty of sleeping. I didn't want to do the scrapbook, I didn't want to do the "yesterday & today" 's class either.
but,After the reading your blog post, I get a little energy back. Thank you for thinking about Japan. Thank you for loving Japan. I wish you visit beautiful Japan again soon!

Thanks so much Ali -- we've been preparing over the last few months (just been having a feeling). But, we are pretty low on medical supplies -- this is a great tip and link.

Also, Costco has some great food tubs (freeze dried -- but we live in a climate with a LOT of water, so that's all right). Easy to store and long-lasting -- with a week's worth of food for three (I think).

Keeping supplies in the car is a great bit of advice, too. We do this (especially, after being in the quake of '89 in CA) and it's come in handy.

Thanks again and be safe! =)

On a smaller scale, 2 months ago we had a kitchen fire, but the smoke damage was so bad that our house is totally gutted. Thankfully it happened when we were gone, but it really made us think, and other people have told us too, it made them think about what if it happened when we were home. Did we have an escape plan? Our house has one way to get down from up stairs and we didn't have a fire ladder. We're not sure how we would have gotten out of the house--and what do we REALLY need to try to take with us, if anything?

Our home was hit by a tornado last year (we live in NC) and we had to live in an apartment for 3 months while it was being repaired. Our son was 2 at the time and I was 8 months pregnant with our second son. By God's grace the storm hit early enough in the evening that we were all awake and were paying attention. We had about 30 seconds of warning to take cover in our closet under the stairs before all our windows exploded. It was very scary, but the scariest part is still thinking what COULD have happened! My son's room sustained the worst damage - a giant hole opened up in the roof and half the ceiling collapsed right on his bed.

I can't stress enough the importance of being prepared even when you live in what you think is a non-disaster prone area. Be sure to get a WEATHER RADIO that you keep on all the time and program to receive alerts about warnings in your area. Take pictures of each room in your house and document your valuables. Decide where your "safe place" will be and stock it with what you might need (like blankets and a flashlight). A little bit of effort can go a long way in the most critical of moments when disaster strikes without warning!

My sister gave us a notebook for Christmas one year to put important info in and emergency cash. Our church has asked us for years to have food storage. Last year we put together small emergency backpacks for each family member. I just hosted a Shelf Reliance party that sells freezed dried food as well as other emergency supplies. I have had wheat, sugar, flour, noodles stored, but this company has vegetables, fruit, milk, and a larger variety of food down to brownie mix. The freezed dried stuff have shelf lifes of up to 20 years. Having food storage on hand has helped also in times of financial difficulty as well.

You can get emergency food kits from Costco.com. They have them for all different diets, such as vegetarian and gluten-free. Just search "emergency kits" in the search engine. You also do not need a membership to shop Costco online.

As a person who calls Christchurch her home town and happened to be in Tokyo when the big quake hit while we were visiting my husband's family I really ought to have a kit at the ready. We are currently living in Singapore which seems to be remarkably free of natural disasters. Having been down to my last diaper in Tokyo as they were completely sold out post quake (thank goodness for friends from out of the quake zone who brought some down with them for us) and struggling to find food for my one year old daughter in the days after the quake I am certainly going to be more organised with that side of things! It is a good reminder that we should not be complacent!

Thanks Ali for the links and reminders to prepare for emergencies. My husband and I lived in Japan for two years while he was in the Navy and my heart goes out to the people there. They are very strong but this devastation will take many years to recover from. I live in the midwest so tornadoes and sometimes an earthquake are very possible here. I used to have a kit years ago but I need to start over and the links you gave were very helpful.

I live not far from the christchurch earthquakes, a friend whose home was severally damaged in the earthquake offered me this advice - make sure your survival kit is readily accessible, maybe in a small shed outside, so that if your house comes crashing down you can still get to the survival kit

Thanks for the ready.gov link. It's given me a lot to think about. And under the topic of scrapbooking...

As I look at my already large collection of scrapbooks and mini albums I started wondering which one would I take if I had to leave my home, but had time to gather a few important things. I have the last 10 years of photos saved digital in multiple hard drives that I can easily take w/me, but what about old pictures and all those painstakingly made layouts?

any thoughts?