I live in Southern California. Earthquake territory. When I encountered my first trembler, I don’t know which moved faster—the floor or my racing heart. On a scale of 1-10 given a Richter Scale, my stress level was 45. Yes, terrified!!
That was 35 years ago. It took me about 5 years to read what I could do and to come up with strategies that could at least mitigate damage. I was devoted. Had emergency rations in the garbage can in the garage. I had the medicines and first aid and lots of flashlights. I had a box in the car with extra clothing, hard-soled shoes, food, and water. And under the bed, more hard-sole shoes (glass could be everywhere.) Back then, the other advice was to stand under a door frame when an earthquake hit.
Fast forward 30 years. There have been no quakes in my area. I realized I had become complacent and careless. The shoes under the bed had disappeared. Not all the heavy furniture was bolted to the wall. And while there was no picture hanging over our bed, there were plenty of pictures and mirrors hung with single nails. Not good!
How foolish. This weekend, I decided I needed to read my own book and put
PREsilience™ into action.
Imagine my horror at finding out the garage was the WORST place to store emergency supplies. And in dumping out the trash can of supplies, batteries had corroded in flashlights, canned beans had exploded and medicines had expired more than 10 years ago!! New information also said that the place to go was under heavy furniture and NOT a door frame. Bottled water should not be left on concrete floor. And where was mine??
On concrete, of course!
May I share with you the START of my PREsilience—preemptive resilience. Still waiting for the freeze dried food to come but I now have most everything. I will keep you posted as I practice what I preach. PS: My wonderful TrueValue Hardware helper made shopping for these supplies SOOOO easy, I didn’t have to walk through acres of floor space. He knew where everything was, advised me and I was in and out in under 15 minutes!!! I love you TrueValue!