Family and Household Preparedness Tips: How to Prepare for a Disaster

Preparing for a disaster is a little bit like buying life insurance. You hope and pray that the day when it will be necessary to use it is far off, but are reasonably sure that someday it will be a necessity. Thus, we grudgingly buy smoke detectors, safety ladders (for getting out of a second story room in a fire situation) and canned food hoping that all they will ever really do is gather dust. Having these items is a great start to a disaster prepared household, but are you really prepared, or have you simply done the minimum necessary so that you will be forced to depend on a government who is not going to be there to help you? Anybody who saw the aftermath of hurricane Katrina knows exactly what I'm talking about. I don't know about you, but come the big California earthquake, I'm not going to be waiting in the Staples Center for Governor Schwarzenegger to drive up in his Hummer and hand me a cookie. And I don't think you ought to be either - so here are some tips to be sure that - in any disaster - you are completely prepared.

First of all, water - water - water - water. You can buy cases of it from anywhere and it's very inexpensive. A normal person goes through about two gallons of water per day in a survival situation (from washing to drinking to cooking), so be sure that you have enough for your entire family (animals included) to survive a minimum of one week. More than that is, of course, better, but any less than that and you'll be pushing your luck if disaster ever truly hits.