Be Prepared for a Natural Disaster

Yougov.com, the polling site, finds that a discouraging number of Americans even in the strike zone haven't taken, or tried to start taking, some basic steps to protect themselves against a rerun of Hurricane Sandy:

http://today.yougov.com/news/2012/11/14/64-americans-unprepared-natural-disasters/

Honestly, Gentle Readers...sometimes I think it's a good thing that the Cat Sanctuary gets power outages on almost a weekly basis. It's physically impossible for us to depend on anything electric-powered; we enjoy our mod. con. too, but we have to keep candles, flashlights, firewood, and so on around at all times.

Maybe some of you get through years without a power outage. If so, I would like to appeal to your pride. If you are able-bodied and you find yourself stranded in the cold and the dark, do you want to sit around begging for help, or would you rather get busy helping your neighbors who are less able-bodied than you are?

This web site generally offers advice on how not to spend money, but on some things you need to spend money. Some of these things are candles, flashlights, batteries, blankets, dried and canned food, bottled water if your source of water is off your property, firewood and/or Coleman fuel and/or a generator, a battery-powered radio if contact with the outside world is important to you, and some other "alternative" source for anything you are likely to need if you're cut off from electric power for a week. (For example, if you're a writer, a manual typewriter and paper.)

Check out Liz Klimas's warning here:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/report-u-s-electric-infrastructure-inherently-vulnerable-to-terrorist-attacks/