Tonight I went to a stake Relief Society training; a member of our stake presidency (who is a doctor) spoke about emergency preparedness, particularly about preparing for a pandemic. The swine flu has hit Colorado pretty hard this last month, but he (and many others) are of the opinion that the swine flu is just preparing us for how to deal with more dangerous viruses. He believed that the two most likely reasons we will ever need to use our food storage are because of 1. unemployment and 2. we don't want to leave our homes for a couple of weeks due to an illness outbreak. Now, whether or not you agree with him on that, he had some good ideas for being prepared - just in case - for future epidemics. He suggested that every home, in addition to their food storage, have:
- enough food at at all times to avoid a trip to the grocery store for at least a few weeks
- at least a few weeks of water storage
- plenty of extra hand sanitizer
- masks, in case someone in the home is sick, for the caregiver to wear
- gloves, for the same reason above
- bleach, to keep the home sanitized
- a cash reserve
- extra medications
- a way to purify water
You know, I am not a dooms-day type of person, but what he said tonight made a lot of sense. Let's say the swine flu was breaking out all over in your area. Even though it's not a very deadly disease, you still might be tempted to stay home from work, keep your kids home from school, and stay isolated for a few days. Now imagine if the virus was even more harmful. You're not going to want to go stand in a line at the pharmacy with sick people to pick up your regular medication; you would want to avoid the grocery store, bank, and other public places. Also, if everyone decides to stay home, many businesses, stores, banks, even ATMs may stop running as usual. His point was basically this: all families who consider themselves prepared should be ready to stay in their home, if needed, at any given time for at least a few weeks.
I think it's good advice. Why not be prepared? Hopefully you'll never have a need to isolate your family inside your home, but just in case . . .
Anyway, I plan on putting some of these ideas into effect, and wanted to share the information with those I love to use as you want.
I love this reminder. Last week my good friend's oldest was diagnosed with the swine flu which meant that her other 4 kids were required to stay home for 7 days as well. Her husband was in a bind at work so she was homebound with 5 kids, one of them violently ill. She's a couponer and a storage guru so she had plenty of 7 up, saltines, stuff to make soup, even playdough and other new toys that were meant for Christmas but were brought out early to alleviate total boredom. Her challenge, and this post, has brought some clarity to future shopping trips.
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