How prepared are you really?

While there are numerous individuals who believe themselves to be ready for anything, the stark reality is that everyone has something they aren’t prepared to experience and it’s ideal for you to take a hard look at where your shortcomings are.

If a fireman knocked on your door right now and not only alerted you to a nearby fire but ordered you to leave your home, how long would it take you to pack up your family and get out the door? When seconds count, are you going to be running around the house grabbing items like a chicken with its head cut off or will your family know exactly what their responsibilities are and what needs to be done

It’s important for families to sit down during the calm moments and determine who will be responsible for grabbing items to throw in your family vehicle. If you have very small children, even they can carry their own customized emergency bags and be expected to do tasks like putting a lease on the dog and getting it to the vehicle.

If a tornado warning blared across your weather band radio, would your bug out bags already be packed and at the front door? If not, why not? Many recently relocated individuals to Florida don’t know very much about our weather and if they know anything it’s usually very minimal. In the state of Florida, we have some of the most dangerous situations and families need to prepare for as many of them as possible.

Dangerous Environmental Events

• Wildfires
• Flooding
• Hurricanes
• Tornadoes
• Severe Tropical Storms
• Coastal Storm Surges

If these don’t cause you to be concerned, keep in mind that Florida even has earthquakes and scientists have begun to speculate that there is a chance we could see tsunamis as the weather changes.

Many folks in the preparedness community are planning for the government to be overthrown or an EMP to go off, but natural disasters are more likely than other man-made scenarios. If you want to prepare for these types of events, so be it but I would start off with getting the majority of the preparations for natural disasters covered first.

While my client packet allows you to have many preparedness projects to complete, I would recommend that each family customize a preparedness 3-ring binder that you keep near the front door or garage door entrance with your other B.o.B. supplies.

You will need the following items from your local stores to put together your customized emergency binder.

• 3-Ring Binder
• 3 Hole Paper Puncher
• Large, zippered pencil pouch with gromets
• Avery Plastic label dividers, multiple colors
• Avery Binder pockets, for holding documents

You can always add additional supplies or categories but for your beginning binder, you’ll need to break the sections down into the five basic categories.

• Suburban Homestead Documents
• Vital Documents
• Financial Documents
• Insurance Documents
• Personal Documents

Some of the paperwork from my client folder wouldn’t apply to situations that required vacating your home in an emergency, so sort through them and see what you would like to add to your binder.

The vital documents you will need to gather will include birth certificates for each member of the family, marriage certificate, copies of each drivers’ license or state ID’s, social security card copies of each family member, vehicle registration, and passports.

Your pencil pouch should hold your financial supplies like your original social security cards, cash, emergency credit cards and a few check books. If you want to keep the social security cards in your safe until just before you need to walk out the door, it’s understandable and most safes are rated to handle fires.

Your insurance section needs to contain documents relating to homeowners’ insurance, renters’ insurance, life insurance, health insurance, dental/optical insurance, and any other documentation needed if you were to lose your home and extra vehicles.

Finally, with your personal documents you need to print out your emergency contact list, along with a list of personal information for each family members including their medical issues and if you have them, copies of any information pertaining to your weapons.

There is a phone app that my husband recommends for storing secure passwords and it’s called BitWarden Password Manager. Educate yourself on this app and consider using it to store all of your passwords for your devices, as well as passwords for online banking.

Be sure to create a list of each family members duties in the event of an emergency and tuck it in the front of your binder. And I would strongly encourage you to run practice drills with your family as numerous folks have been caught up in the midst of wildfires only to lose everything they owed and a few family members. In the last few years, we have seen natural disasters that seem almost unexplainable, so you need to prepare for as many contingencies as possible.