How prepared are you? Do you have a home first aide kit? Do you have enough insurance for when you are involved a major accident?
There is the little home disasters that can affect you day to day living. What about your cell phone dies? Your computer decides not to start. What would you do? When the car will not start in the middle of Wal Mart parking lot? Your son or daughter comes running into the house with a major cut on their hand.
I did not want to start the week on such a negative note. But this is a subject we all need to stop every so often and discuss. If you have been reading The Shopping Nazi for some time you know that I preach about backing up the information on your computer. If you have a lot of pictures and contacts that are not on your computer the cell phone’s information should be backed up. Then there has been other times where I have wrote about home/car insurance.
Disaster planning is not an easy subject it discuss, as a family, but it is needed. There is a great benefit to discussing. The big benefits are:
• Providing a sense of security
• Minimizing risk of delays
• Minimizing decision-making during a disaster
• Prevent from wasting money through emotional reactions
No matter how small or how large the disaster the first response is emotional. The emotional response says fix the issue and fix it fast! However, this is not always the best response.
Periodically, we take time to:
Insurance – Review our insurance coverage. Do we have enough money in the bank to cover the deductible. Insurance is cheaper when you have a larger deductible and/or co-pay.
Emergency Kits – Every car should have a small set of tools, flares, and first aid kit, at the very least. For vehicles that drive regularly in remote locations, this should be larger.
Every home should have some basic tools, fire extinguisher. first aid kit, and back up cell phone. tools and first aid kit will vary to the size of the family and their normal activities. What is nice about basic cell phone is that even if they are not active you can still call 911. Keep it charged.
Where to Meet – If there is a fire in the house at night, a good meeting place across the street by a light pole. In case where the family is separated there should be a couple alternative meeting location. If location #1 is destroyed in an earthquake then location #2 is where we are going to meet. Location #3 is where the family can stay for a few days until everyone shows up.
Bottom-line: I have just covered some general stuff. There are all kinds of disasters. But we all have the same basic emotional response to them. “Fix it fast and now!” “I don’t care what it takes!” Police and fire fighting professional will tell you this is the wrong attitude to have.
Take advantage of local fairs, open houses and other community events where you local emergency professionals are standing their waiting to answer your questions. The Red Cross has a lot of good information.
Don’t get caught unprepared! Be Prepared to the level needed for your activities and the location you live.
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