Emergency preparedness

We had a combined Sunday School today to discuss emergency preparedness. There were a few good things mentioned that I had not already heard of. First of all, our big danger here is of course fires, earthquakes and power outages (a frequent occurrence on the mountain). In an earthquake we would most likely be stuck up here, so would need water, food, power sources etc. One gadget I want to get is one of these...

LED Lantern with Crank Power and Mosquito Repelling Transmitter Features
Innovative Technology Never needs replacement batteries
Generate Power Cranking clockwise or counterclockwise for power anytime
Fifteen Super Bright LEDs
Emergency Signaling Flashers
Emergency 130 Decibel Siren
Directional Compass
High Quality AM/FM Radio
External Speaker Connectable to iPod or Other MP3 Player
Night Light
Mosquito Repellent
No batteries required, 2 minutes of talk time from 30 seconds of crankingAdditonal Features:
15 Super Bright 20,000 MCD LED Bulbs
Cell phone charger
Cigarette lighter adapter
AM-FM radio
MP3 player speaker
Emergency flasher
130 decibel emergency siren
Ultra-sonic mosquito repeller with night light

Pretty cool huh. Another thing mentioned was having at least 5 gallons of gas on hand. With the last fire evacuation the gas station lines were terrible. Who wants to wait in one of those only to be told they ran out?

Today I received e-mail from my artist friend in New Orleans. She and her husband have evacuated to a Motel 6 in Alabama with their two cats. They have a two week reservation. She said they passed many gas stations that were already sold out. We are keeping them in our prayers.

The other thing I liked was from our Bishop's wife. She made a change jar and the family started saving all of their change in the change jar (no touching!). On her own and in a secret place she started saving dollar bills. Every time her husband or she had dollar bills for change they saved them. She could not convince their teen agers, but she said if any ended up in the wash they were fair game. In less than a year she added up the change jar and dollars and found she had a $1000 to put toward emergency supplies and savings. We were encouraged to try the change thing - then when we had enough, to purchase some of the things on our emergency supply list.

One thing Franz and I need is a new duvet. Ours was purchased before we left for England and all of the down seems to have sifted to the corners or just disappeared. We will need a warm one to survive cold winter nights, especially if the power is out. I'll be saving for this as well!

It is hard when we are trying to just survive month to month, but I really think it is important.