Top 100 Items to Disappear First During a National Emergency

[Cassandra]

Is the towel a nod to the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"?

I think I will fill a warehouse with batteries of all kinds and then defend it with my life...and dole out batteries for barter!

Yes! One of my favorite books.

And I think you have just had a stroke of genius with the battery idea. I wish I had thought of it! Maybe I will stock up a closet full of matches. You can fit a lot of matches in a closet.

Cassandra

Attack-cat, I don't intend to make light of what you are saying. But in THAT kind of disaster, I am not going to be one of those ultra-prepared types that (if in the movies) would be driving around ruling the cities with their automatic weapons and spiked armor. It's just not in my nature. If things get so bad you can't even get matches or toilet paper, my family will high-tail it to the remotest woods we can find and live like the birds & bears... off what we can scrounce. (If we survive the initial desctruction, that is.) If something like that happens, I wonder how many of us will be left, anyway.

 

[poppycat]

Attackcat, I have nothing against people making whatever preparations they think are necessary. I just think we all have different opinions about what needs to be done. I would just hate to see someone living with constant fear and anxiety because they didn't have EVERYTHING they might need in a disaster. Because you really just never know what is going to happen. Worrying about tomorrow robs today of it's joy.

 

[Beekissed]

In all seriousness, I think my most important tool in an emergency would be faith. Yep, faith can get one past the worry about being prepared for anything.

NOONE can be prepared for anything and, while its nice to think of having things...just in case...getting all juiced up for a world disaster is just exhausting when you think of all the eventualities.

What's the worst that can happen? You die. If you are prepared to die at any time(which is a good way to live) then you have covered all the bases. Anything else is just so much fluff until you DO die! The various methods of dying, some more painful than others, of course, will still result in the same thing. I'm not fatalistic, just practical!

 

[attack-cat]

Everyone, no offense taken. I do prep but I'm not fanatical about it. I pick up extra cans of whatever is on sale that we use often and try to make it so that if the power goes out for a legth of time all will be calm here. That failed miserably when the power was out recently. The kids were bored and drove me to tears. I then took it out on hubby. It was a mess. I thought I was better prepared but without power we lost lots of food from the freezer and I mean lots. I had planned on doing some canning soon. So we lost a lot of money and comfort. I don't want anyone else to go through that. No we have a generator so we won't take a big loss on food again. We had the basics but a few nicities would have been great! Like some hard candy and new things for the kids to do other than annoy me! We have toddlers. We do have some night gear because where we live the sheriff can't get out here fast and we have had some problems recently. My hubby works nights and we had someone walking around on the back porch while he was at work. It scared me pretty badly. Now I can look out and see what is roaming the yard. Out here if something happens and you scream for help ... no one will hear you.

Faith is what keeps this household running. Without Him we would fail. The first thing I do in the morning is thank the good Lord for another day and then I log onto ..... http://icanhascheezburger.com/ for a good cup of humor! I want to be secure enough to not have to worry about going into town for anything if the power is out or something happens. Where we live you can't just run into town on a whim. And thats when the power is on! The roads are so crooked they must have followed a snake to make them. So I would like to be able to keep the household happy and calm no matter what situation occurs. I would have loved to have had something for the kids to do when they were sitting on the couch going "Mommy turn on the light." I wanted a cup of hot chocolate so bad!!!! But that would mean getting the bowl and cup dirty and then I couldn't wash it. My stored up water was needed for the critters. Just little things that I didn't think about until the power was off. Every bowl that we used ... sat in the sink dirty. At Walmart yesterday I bought paper plates and things that I can toss out or burn. I had yogurt for breakfasts in the little cooler but it took a spoon and bowl for both kids to have breakfast. Just little things that would have made life simpler. As soon as we hooked the generator up I did dishes! Just don't learn the hard way my new friends. That little spell we had with no power was miserable.

 

[poppycat]

Attack-cat: You rock if you could get through those days with no power and not go completely insane with toddlers.

 

[attack-cat]

Thank you Poppycat! I lost my mind somewhere already so now I'm just kinda numb!!! LOL

 

[Cassandra]

attack-cat: Where are you? What disaster & how long was your power out? I was in the same boat after Gustav.

I had some water stored up in plastic 2 ltr bottles, treated according to the WHO method of treating water for storage. You are only supposed to store that water for six months and mine is almost two years old. So I didn't think it was fit for drinking, but I did wash dishes with it!

It was so gross, too because I hate icky dish water. I put one bottle of water on one side of the sink and added soap. I put two bottles of water on the other side of the sink for rinsing. It was cold and the wash side got slimy fast, but it got the job done--to disaster standards, anyway. But like you, I had a sink full of dirty dishes THE WHOLE TIME.

Luckily, I didn't have to worry about water for the animals. We got torrential rains for the whole two days that the power was off. I caught enough rain water off the roof to fill up a 6' diameter kiddy pool. (A lot of water) It wasn't exactly pristine, but it was - again - good enough for a disaster. It was also a life saver for flushing the toilets.

For heating up soup and stuff (because the rain was literally too bad to grill outside) I took a granite canner, put a flower pot upside down inside the canner, put a plate on top of the flower pot, put about a dozen tea candles on the plate and lit them, put an oven rack on top of the canner (which was a few inches above the candles). I used my iron skillet and while it didn't get hot enough to boil water, it would bring canned stew & chili to a simmer.

For washing up (the filthy kid) I got some of the rain water, strained out the grit by pouring it through a mesh strainer lined with several folded layers of a flour-sack dish towel. I used our drinking water for washing his face, but I washed the rest of him with this filtered rain water.

The rest of us didn't bathe for that two days, but the boy... man, he stayed filthy running in and out and playing in the water running off the roof.

He did drive me pretty batty. But we'd got some coloring books & colors and things for him to do when it was light. He kept asking to watch a movie or something, though.

Cassandra

 

[FarmerChick]

attack-cat
please don't misunderstand my funning with the list. It was just fun to chat and goof off. Alot of things on the list are necessary obviously, some less important, until needed I am sure.

Cassandra--you had me laughing hard...and poppycat, I agree with you. I am not the "buy the list" in case of emergency person either. I have the basics and I live in the moment also. I don't plan on a national emergency just like I don't plan on any other disaster happening where I need 3 years of food stocked up. Just me...I don't have time to plan my life constantly, I do like to live the moment and smile!

 

[patandchickens]

Since several have mentioned it - if you have no clean water with which to wash dishes, a stack o' rags will actually go a considerable ways. Just wipe the dish Real Clean and set the rag aside in a hamper or whatever to be washed when circumstances permit. If it is raining outside, you could rinse the dishes in the rain before wiping.

I am not saying that just wiping dishes is 100% guaranteed to avoid any possible microbiological consequence but I've done it a number of times and never had a problem, so it might be something to consider.

JME,

Pat

 

[chiknmama]

Is the towel a nod to the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"?

I think I will fill a warehouse with batteries of all kinds and then defend it with my life...and dole out batteries for barter!

Yep - Love the book and the movie both.

I just have to get that dang song outta my head every time I watch the movie -

So long, and Thanks for all the fish -
Meriah