emergency preparedness

It’s Time Again for Hurricane 101

How to prepare your home for hurricane season. Know what supplies to have on hand if you need to stay or evacuate.

Know Your Neighbors: Emergency Preparedness 101

Today’s topic has several meanings. First, know your literal, next-door neighbors. Know their names and phone numbers. Yes, this means you might have to introduce yourself after having lived in your neighborhood or apartment complex for several years. (If your neighbors are a little weird, maybe use a Google Voice number so you don’t have …

Picture of clouds over flat image of earth from nasa

Two things before we start this basic how to evacuate safely discussion. Please note that this is a beginner look at emergency preparedness. It’s for those who are just beginning to think about how they or they and their families will handle an emergency and isn’t the place to show off how awesomely prepared you …

I live in a part of the country where our usual emergency preparedness includes being ready for hurricanes from June until the end of November, small tornadoes in the spring, and extremely rare earthquakes. 2020, of course, threw in plague and civil unrest. Your home may have other risks, including some that you didn’t expect—looking …

As I write this, many people are under shelter in place orders. While we are allowed to go to work for an essential job, to exercise (walk the dog), to go to the doctor/pharmacy, or to the store, our primary role in this pandemic is to stay home. Yes, it sucks. It could be so …

Canned goods on an emergency pantry shelf

2020 Update: This post on stocking the emergency pantry was written in July of 2010. Ten years have passed and it’s more relevant than ever. I want to emphasize that I am not saying hoard all of the toilet paper. As you make your trips to the grocery store just set a little aside each …

I’ve been paying a lot of attention to the information being spread with regard to how to prepare for a disaster, like a hurricane. Bad Advice I’ve Seen Circulating Hotels must take your pets in due to a law passed after Hurricane Katrina. No. This is patently false. Hotels and motels are private businesses and not …

Hurricane Matthew – What We Learned

Heather says I hope everyone is doing as well or better than can be expected. Last week, starting on Tuesday, it became readily apparent that Hurricane Matthew was coming for a visit. It was Thursday before we had a good idea of the type of visit he’d be paying. We spent the week debating whether …

Heather says This is my dad’s neighborhood. No one got hurt, but it took me a couple of days to finally reach him to hear this firsthand. The cell towers near their home were damaged, and without power and only cordless phones, I couldn’t reach them via their landline. They are able to stay in their …

Heather says: I received a concerning email, yesterday, that made me realize it was time to send this post out again as a reminder. This is the first in our series on household chemicals. Over the past few years, I have gotten the impression that many people are using chlorine bleach in an unsafe manner. Chlorine …