Why Prepare?

I lived in Florida for 10 years, which is smack dab in the middle of hurricane, fire, and tornado zones. Emergency managers in Florida ran an advertising campaign for the Tampa Bay Hurricane Expo in 2010 at the start of hurricane season reminding residents:

The First 72 Are Up to You

From the website:

The 2010 theme - The First 72 Are Up To You – which meant that after a natural or man-made disaster it is important for families to have the water, food, batteries and other essentials they will need to sustain themselves for at least three days.

Not only is it a catchy and memorable slogan, but it's good practical advise for everyone. After a hurricane or tornado in Florida it sometimes takes several days or weeks to restore public utility services. I can recall several examples where it took weeks to restore electricity to homes in the hardest hit areas.

There are also many, many occasions I can think of where in anticipation of an upcoming snow storm, there was a run on groceries. When we lived in Nashville the local news station called the phenomenon a Kroger Alert. The funny thing about it though, 50% of the time there was no snow storm. The simple possibility of snow caused a buying frenzy for basic items like milk, bread, and eggs.

If you haven't already done it, now's a good time to look around your house, in your pantry, cabinets, storage rooms to determine if you have adequate supplies on hand to sustain your household for 72 hours until emergency management personnel can mobilize and retailers can begin the process of re-stocking the shelves.