Since we seem to be facing lots of natural disasters recently I thought this would be a good thing to bring up again...

Every emergency disaster preparedness plan out there says that you must be prepared to be responsible for YOURSELF for THREE days... 3 days water and food. Katrina hit Tues, and it was Fri before any real aid showed up... 3 days later. SO, are YOU prepared? Everyone knows they SHOULD be but have you actually done anything about it? (the fires were MY big wakeup call!)

You should have packed medicine for a week, water for a minimum of 3 days, and food... canned food WITH a can opener, beef jerky, nuts... anything dry that provides sustenance. Also pack food for the pets, and KNOW where their kennels and leashes are...

NOW then, the second part of this is do you have your emergency contact list REALLY ready? I have a friend who was missing 3 family members for almost a week... the family lost all 14 homes. She brought up a valid point last night that I hadn't considered. If you have lots of extended family, cousins, nieces, nephews etc... create a BROAD emergency contact list... what I mean is don't just have THEIR phone numbers... have the phone numbers of their IN-LAWS, friends etc as well... if they don't have phone service, and find a way to make only ONE call (which is what happened to her family) that one person can call you if they have your numbers, or vice versa... she has family that ended up all over the states... and finding them was a logistical nightmare because she didn't have a broad enough list...

just thought this was worth mentioning yet again...

here is a good website (the best I know of) for emergency preparedness... it is San Francisco's site, but better than any other I've seen!

www.72hours.org