It only took the sound of an explosion and a power outage in my neighborhood yesterday to actually wake me up to the reality of how important emergency preparedness really is.  I live and have lived in California for my entire life – I am used to the concept of the “Big One” happening and have pushed the thought far away in my mind, until yesterday’s power outage.  I think I was sufficiently spooked into the reality of what it means to actually have to deal with a serious emergency.

That’s what led me here, FEMA’s link to creating your own emergency preparedness kit (seriously, do it!) and the types of information that you want and need on hand in the event of an emergency.  Ready.gov has tons of interesting information, and I highly recommend bookmarking it.  A small backpack from Amazon with the “basics” seems sufficient, but it’s actually not – the items you can collect on your own can be more personalized and make you thoroughly think about what an emergency can involve – it’s random, but even remembering things like toys and books for children and feminine hygiene products…  Also, filling out information beforehand is so crucial, I am starting to think, in the event of a real emergency, I’m not sure if it’s that easy to quickly recall the memorized information that is second nature to us.  Just think, it’s better to prepared than not…   Are you ready?