Preparation is a priceless asset
Recently, I had a burned-out lightbulb in my home. My daughter would remind me about the bulb, but it still took me several days before I grabbed a step stool and changed it.
It took less than two minutes to complete the small task, and then I felt bad about how long it took me to take the initiative and just fix the problem.
Later, I shared this story with a friend of mine. I look up to this friend, who has a successful career, a wonderful family and beautiful home. He looked at me and said: “It’s the same for everyone, don’t feel like it’s just you.”
He shared stories about lightbulbs left unchanged and piles of items on coffee tables that need to be sorted through and put away. It was a lightbulb moment for me, pun intended. I wasn’t alone in this.
At work, I can be assigned a task, and I ensure it’s done promptly, but for things around my house, it can take a while.
There might not be an urgency about a lightbulb, but there are things around our homes that we should be taking care of; emergency kits are one of them. With emergency kits, we aren’t reminded the same way we are when we walk into a room with a burned-out lightbulb. If we can walk past the bulb that needs to be changed, how are we even going to remember to work on these kits?
The reminder for needing an emergency kit will come when an emergency hits, and by then, it’s too late.
Another speed bump in the emergency kit task is that they have to be updated and refreshed annually. Like the pile on the coffee table, it’s work that’s never done.
Metchosin resident Linda Payne has given many presentations on emergency preparedness; she’s passionate about it and spreads the word among her friends, family, church and community.
I don’t know anyone who owns more water-purification devices or any other emergency-preparedness items than Payne. Through her passion, Payne has also devised a system in which she needs to have only one 72-hour emergency kit in her home, and it doesn’t require an annual update. It is stored in her garage in a large garbage can sealed with duct tape. She made this kit nearly 25 years ago.
“This is the lazy man’s way,” she laughed, explaining if she stores items that will last for 30 years, there is no replenishing needed. “If you store it correctly, it’ll still be as good in 30 years as it is today.”
In her kit, Payne stocks up on freezedried foods that expire in 30 years and can be found at any outdoor camping store. The trick is that some of these food pouches expire in seven years and others in 30.
If you stock up on items such as granola bars, they usually expire in less than a year.
Bottled water will also go stale, and can be stored for about two years. Special pouches of water can last about five years, and you can even buy canned water that lasts 50 years.
Payne’s system is pretty much: Set it and forget it. When Payne came up with this system, she had a family of 10 to think about. She purchased a variety of sizes of T-shirts, sweatshirts and sweatpants with cuffs on the bottom. She also bought tube socks, because without a heel, they will fit anyone.
“A two-year-old can wear a youth sweatshirt even if it hangs to the floor; it will keep them warm,” Payne said. “Before, I would pack individual clothes for each child, but in six months they would outgrow the clothes. Now I pack clothes that can grow with everyone.”
An easy way to start a kit with Payne’s method is to purchase a preassembled kit and then remove anything that will eventually need replacing. “Batteries corrode, water purification tablets rust, and lighters will lose their fuel,” she explained, adding they should be replaced with solar-powered or crank-operated radios and flashlights, water-filter straws and flints.
For people without emergency kits at home, it’s time to start thinking about one. Don’t let it be the burned-out lightbulb you keep walking past. Charla Huber works in communications and Indigenous relations for M’akola Group of Societies.