Emergency Preparedness

I recently read Allergy Mom's blog entry regarding Hurricane preparation. I found the information interesting and useful.I especially found the tidbit about putting your computer in the dishwasher amusing, yet practical. We do not live in hurricane territory, so I did not think I would need to use any of the information.

Well, last Wednesday we had severe thunderstorms with extremely high winds, and at least 3 tornadoes in the area. Now they were not huge, like you see in the mid west, but in Virginia they do not have to be, to cause a panic. I was in a restaurant when people started getting text alerts that the schools were going to hold the kids until the storms passed through. This was fine with me, that last thing we need is a bunch of school buses on the road with tornadoes in the area.

The high drama was over in about 20 minutes, and the buses showed up about 45 minutes later. In the meantime, we had lost power in our neighborhood. Usually this does not concern me at all. Our power outages are normally short so I do not worry about the food in my freezer or the lack of AC. Businesses in the area still had power so we were able to pick up some burgers and wings for dinner. However, poor Collin's food all needs to be reheated or cooked, so he has to make due with cereal.

We were so not prepared to be without power. It was not until it started to become dark that we thought we should look for some flashlights - we found a couple with enough battery power to last a while. I knew from reading Allergy Mom's blog that if I did not open the refrigerator and freezer, my food would last until morning at least. When morning came with no power I though I should get some supplies.

I spent the morning gathering up some non perishable food, ice, an extra cooler and some underwear (I was already behind on laundry.) I figured that if I did all this, then the power would come back, and I would not need it. No such luck. I emptied the ice maker so it would not leak all over the freezer as the ice started to melt. I had to throw away the ice cream and a couple other soft things, but the meats and hard frozen items were still frozen.

After lunch it was starting to get a little hot (this was the first day we had over 90). We decided to head over to a friends house who still had power and AC. As I was literally walking out the door I heard a click and the power came back on! Yeah!

Overall it was not really that bad at all - it could have been so much worse. It just set me back a couple of days - I still have some catching up to do around the house.