Just what does Mother Nature have to do to make us all wake up and smell the coffee packets we’ve tucked into our emergency preparedness kits?
All week long we’ve been seeing headlines about the impending series of fall storms.
Though Wednesday night’s predicted rainfall came and went without drama, we were still facing two more forecasted storms – of increasing severity – as the paper went to press on Thursday.
Undoubtedly, some of you reading this right now listened to the experts and got prepared.
You packed your 72 hours’ worth of food and water into your emergency kits and stowed them in a safe place. You made sure you had flashlights, lanterns and candles at the ready. You made sure your family had stocked up on the necessities of life, from diapers and toilet paper to medications and a first aid kit. You checked to ensure your car had a full gas tank.
Or perhaps you were one of those people who didn’t have to do any extra preparation because, wisely, you have your emergency preparedness kits at the ready at all times.
Then there’s the rest of us. You know, those who went, “Oh, right, where are the candles again? I should hunt out some matches some day” – and then went on watching TV without doing anything about it.
We get it.
Emergency preparedness is hard. It takes time. It takes money. It takes organization.
Most of all, it takes motivation.
For many of us, that’s the hard part. The idea that we need to be prepared for a disaster – be it a major fall storm or The Big One – is simply too big to contemplate. So we do what people have always done, and we stick our head back into the metaphorical sand – or into our comfy pillows and down duvets – and choose not to think about it.
Trouble is, one of these days, Mother Nature’s not going to give us that choice.
Just get prepared already – before it’s too late.
