During an emergency situation, no one wants to feel completely lost or confused about what to do.
Here at Wellbeck.com, we want to take survival preparation several steps beyond what you need in an immediate emergency situation.
Emergency preparedness and survival preparation are often thought of as the same thing and technically they are, but to understand the difference between preparing for immediate needs and long term needs, we’re going to separate the two on this website.
To clarify our separation of the terms:
Emergency preparedness will ensure that you have the means to take care of you and your family in the hours and days immediately following a disaster. (72 hours minimum preparedness)
Survival preparation will ensure that you have the knowledge and tools needed to take care of your family long after a crisis has happened. (2 week minimum preparedness)
We believe it helps to separate the two in terms of how you prepare for the short term and the long term. Whether you’re in a short term or long term survival situation, having a plan in place will make all the difference to your safety, comfort and survival.
Step 1 : Away From Home Scenario
Understand the risks to the area you live in and establish several plans that address the possible scenarios you could encounter.
Being in your own home during a crisis is always the best case scenario because that’s where your supplies and personal items are located, but sometimes like in the case of fire, tornado, earthquake, etc, your home is no longer a safe zone. If that is the case you find yourself in, be prepared in advance so everyone in your family knows what they should do.
Establish an evacuation plan & meeting location & contact system:
- Find out where local shelters are located and show everyone in your family
- Pick a family or friends home as 1 potential meeting place that is close…but not too close to your own home
- Establish an out of town family member or friend who is your contact/check in person
- create a home Emergency Survival Kit
that can be grabbed in a moments notice – Bonus: have a second one also stored in our vehicles trunk so you always have one just in case.
Hopefully once an imminent crisis is over, you’ll be able to return to your home where you can establish a longer term survival plan.
Step 2: In Home
Survival preparation begins long before a bad situation. First and foremost, create an emergency preparedness plan that takes care of your family in the first 3 days after an emergency.
Once you have established a short term plan, it’s time to ensure you can also take care of your family for a longer period of time. The quantity and duration of time your supplies will last are completely up to you. We do recommend a minimum of a 2 week supply.
When we look back at natural disasters of our past, it can take time for help to arrive in badly struck areas, sometimes several weeks! A 2 week supply is a great goal to have out the gate and if you can add additional weeks of supplies to that number, even better.
No one ever regrets being overly supplied during a time of need…
To get started on your long term plan, make sure you have these 3 basic needs.
Water – Store enough water to provide a gallon of water per person, per day. This provision can certainly take up a lot of space in your home, but it’s critical to your survival after a disaster. Crawl spaces, attic spaces, back corners of closets, unused storage areas and so forth all work.
Food – Store enough non-perishable food to feed each person in your family for a minimum of 2 weeks.
First Aid Kit – Your short term emergency kit will have a well stocked first aid kit, but you can also create a larger and more robust first aid kit for your home that also includes additional medicines and additional supplies.
Energy – In an emergency situation, count on the power, gas and water to be OFF. Be sure to have on hand flashlights, batteries, matches, candles, firestarter, propane stove and 5 gallon tank. Take it a step further and invest in a generator and have on hand several cans of gas stored safely in the garage or an outside shed.
This will get you started today on the minimum needs you’ll have during an emergency situation. We’ll definitely being going into greater detail about survival preparation on future posts so be sure to check back or explore other pages.
Thank you for visiting
http://wellbeck.com