Emergency Preparedness

We had a lesson on emergency preparedness today, that's nothing new, they happen every so often, usually I hear them and know there's a lot to what they say and usually I forget about it before I do anything about it. I would like that to be different this time, maybe this will help me keep with it.
If you're LDS, then the idea of emergency preparedness is nothing new and you've probably heard about it your whole life, food storage is probably what comes to your mind when the word is mentioned. For anyone who isn't LDS, we focus a great deal on emergency preparedness, when emergencies come it's too late to be wondering if you've got the supplies to see it through and so our leaders encourage us to prepare now. You might be wondering what kind of emergencies we might be expecting, we try to be prepared for anything that might come our way, be it flood, earthquake, fire, snowstorm, power outage, unemployment, etc.
As I said food storage is probably the most well known aspect of emergency preparedness but it is by no means the only aspect of it. The Church has put together a website called Provident Living, and their section on emergency preparedness coveres home storage, finaces, community planning, communication and lists resources.
I don't think that I can cover all of emergency preparedness today but maybe since I believe that September is emergency preparedness month (and if it wasn't, it is now) I can keep going through out the month, posting more about this and hopefuly learning more myself.
I guess I can start with food storage, because it's the most well known it's also the one I think I know the most about. To start with, the 'why?' We store food because in an emergency it's not likely that you'll be able to make it to the store and even if you can you probably won't be able to keep going to the store or the stores may run out of things. We are encouraged to start with something like a 72 hour kit and work our way up to a year or more supply of food. Food storage food tends to be things like canned goods, and dried or powdered items. Another item would be to store wheat that can be ground with a wheat grinder. Food storage should be something that can last but it should also be something that you'll eat on a regular basis so that you can cycle through your food storage and it doesn't get bad and go to waste.
Food storage can be a daunting task and something that seems like it would be more fitting to do at some later phase in life but I'm here to tell you that any time, now in fact, is the right time to start. I know that if you're a newley wed or living in a small apartment, it can be especially daunting due to lack of space or money but it is possible and worth it. This article in this month's Ensign Magazine offers a starting place for those in small apartments etc. and ideas on how it can be done. Now on the why you should, it's very important to have food on hand, not just for a disaster type emergency, but for financial emergencies as well. As a college student I was generally straining my budget to be able to pay for the next semester's tuition and all the other things in life. I set myself trips to the grocery store every two weeks and a certian budget for those trips. There were weeks when I was digging through my cubard for a can of this or a package of that, that I might have gotten a month or so earlier to be able to make it through until my next trip to the store. It may sound silly but an extra can or two at each trip to the store can really make a big difference.
Look for future posts on 72 hour kits, First Aid, Financial Preparedness, Communication, Emergency Planning and possibly much, much more.