Printby Ken Jones
A few years ago we had an event that really made us wake up and smell the coffee so to speak. Living here in Florida we are always aware of the constant dangers and emergency situations that a hurricane can create. This also opened my eyes to a lot of other things that could happen not just locally but globally.
We found out the hard way how long it takes to get help from not only the Red Cross but the our own US Gov. We were not in a “hard hit” area but in our area we had no electricity for 2 whole weeks. I’m not trying to say it was a severe emergency at all. I’m trying to make people aware that it could have been a lot worse. Believe me I know it could have been and we were extremely lucky.
I was a lot more fortunate then a lot of my neighbors. I had been married to my wife then for more then 15 yrs. Lucky for me she usually has a real knack for these types of situations as far as being well prepared. Unfortunately we could not help too many of our neighbors and they had a tougher time then they needed to in this case.
We had already thought ahead and had awesome meals stored that had shelf life for 15 yrs or more. So all we needed was the basics such as water, batteries, etc. You never realize how important food is until you’re hungry and start having issues from not getting the nutrition you need.
To help our neighbors out we did use our vehicle to get ice, water, and MRE’s from the Military but that wasn’t nearly enough to help them through. Problem was the Red Cross showed up the first week with diapers, sanitary items, and very little water & the US Military didn’t show up till almost a week later and with not enough to help everyone so a lot of families went without. This caused a lot of other issues like robbing houses and petty thefts. It definitely could have gotten a lot worse.
Now that we are much wiser and much better prepared we will be ready for anything Mother Nature can throw at us as well as mankind. Make no mistake we will not sit by and be the ones having to wait in line for anything. We know this is just the first of many such emergencies that will be coming everyone’s way. Definitely be prepared for what the what if’s in life because if you’re not prepared you will definitely be regretting it. I know I wish we had been better prepared ourselves. We just got lucky that time!
