First Aid Friday: 72 hour/Emergency Kit

For those who live along the coast, including the low-country, hurricane season is almost here.  So today I wanted to send a reminder to gather, inspect, rotate and otherwise make sure disaster supplies and such are in place and in working and usable condition.

Below are some sites that have information about hurricanes and what to include in a disaster supply kit.  Also is a link to some activities for kids.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/prepare/supply_kit.shtml

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/basics.shtml

http://www.ready.gov/kids

These talk about the basics in preparing for possible natural disasters, including a first aid kit.

Some ideas on using the next few weeks to prepare as a family for hurricane season (or other natural disasters):

Have family nights (Family Home Evenings) to discuss what types of natural or other disasters your family could possibly face and what you can do to prepare to lesson the effects of it on your family.  Assign family members to specific duties--an example of this is if there is an evacuation notice for whatever reason, who will grab what, what is most important to grab--that way you have a plan rather than last minute panic.  See a great video, on youtube or here:  http://pgward.org/ep/archives/468, of a mock evacuation that someone put together (the video on pgward is the same one as on youtube).  The video compares 2 families--one that planned for possible evacuation and one that didn't.

As part of the family night or as part of another activity gather your supplies--you can make it fun by doing scavenger hunts, or races to gather the supplies.  Have a packing race--see who can pack their disaster kit the fastest or the best, etc.  

Be sure to inventory your supplies so you know what you have and what you may still need, and can watch for sales on those items--like right now Publix has a buy one get one free deal on its brand of acetaminophen.  And some other stores have some sales on bottled water.  Many camping and backpacking supplies work well for disaster supplies.  As part of your inventory, you may want to indicate which bag or container the supplies are in if each bag contains different items--like when trying to distribute weight for various ages and abilities within the family.

Below is a handout I put together a while back for a RS meeting, that I shared in this post, but thought I'd share it again.

Here is another video on youtube that talks about the need to prepare, please note it isn't made or produced by the church.  I think the person who did put it together did a tasteful and good job of reminding us that there is hope in being faithful and obedient to the counsel we receive from prophets and leaders to prepare ourselves and our families, that with trials that we all do and will face, we can and need to prepare spiritually and temporally.