What Does National Preparedness Month Mean To Me? Time to Assess, Test, & Plan Your Preps!

What Does National Preparedness Month Mean To Me? Time to Assess, Test, & Plan Your Preps!

Being prepared has different meanings for different people. Many people might prepare for the same things, but most of us have different circumstances. One person might try to prepare for everything possible while the next person just wants to get through the next crisis.

September is National Preparedness Month. This is a good time to assess, evaluate, test, and plan your preps. We have some national disasters happening right now and potential crisis coming on the horizon. As we are seeing, people have had to prepare with a plan to stay home and a plan to evacuate. Many people thought they only needed food and water for three days and now they find out they need it for a week or longer. Grocery store shelves were cleared a few days before the hurricane hit and prices rose for products in demand.

What does National Preparedness Month mean to me? It means I need to assess and evaluate my preps. Some of the questions I will ask myself are these:

  • Where am I with my water storage? 
  • Do I have enough one and five gallon water containers to keep us in a good water supply? 
  • How is my food storage? 
  • Could I reasonably last one month on what I have? 
  • Can I stretch it to two months? How is my fuel storage? 
  • Do I have gas cans and propane cylinders to fill? 
  • What do I need to replace in my preps? 
  • What do I need to add? 
  • What areas of my prepping need tweaking, boosting, and rethinking? 
I will consider taking the next step in my prepping. For everyone, the next step will be a different thing. For me, it is considering the purchase of a propane fireplace or wall heater that is non-electric. We need to be able to heat a few rooms without electricity and we cannot have a wood stove at this time. We also need to seriously consider a generator that we can directly wire into the well pump for water and a generator that will run a few things. Since these things take money, we will have to come up with a savings plan and shop around for good deals or used items.

National Preparedness Month means I need to test my preps. 
  • Do my preps still work? 
  • Do I need to replace batteries? 
  • Will my solar chargers work well and how long will they last without recharging? 
  • Do the external battery chargers work and how long do they last? 
  • Do the flashlights and lanterns all work? 
  • Do the lighters still work? 
  • Can I still make fire with a flint and steel? 
  • Does my camp stove still work? 
  • Can I make coffee on it? 
  • Are my gas cans in good shape or do they need replaced? 
Testing your preps now means you can take care of the problems now. I would rather know if things are not working correctly now rather than later. It is easier to replace batteries now than to be fumbling in the dark for them. It is easier to practice your skills now than to learn them in an emergency.

National Preparedness lastly means I need to keep planning my preps. 
  • How are my plans holding up?
  • Do I need reassess my plans?
  • What are my staying home plans?
  • What are my bugging out plans?
  • How are my kids getting home from school if something happens? 
  • Will my daughter be able to drive home from school or work if something happens?
  • How are we getting home from work if something happens?
  • What are my plans for the animals and livestock if something happens?
  • How will we handle security for our home and property?
Planning and re-planning my preps means I have everything taken care of “in case of an emergency”. Plans should be reviewed every year as your family grows and life changes. You should also know and print your daycare’s and school’s plans for emergencies. You need to know where to pick up your kids and if you will be able to. Does your work have a plan for emergencies? You need to know that too and, if they don’t have a plan, help create one.

National Preparedness Month is a great time to review, assess, test, and keep planning your preps. If you need help, just search the articles on my blog as well as doing a Google search. There is a lot of great information out there and, as preppers, we want other people to be prepared too!

Thanks for reading,
Erica

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