Oh heck yes Chris, as I recall in Tremors 3, Burt's place went up in a fireball, despite having a 10 year supply of TEOTWAWKI material.

Yes, you can overprepare wastefully for this sort of thing. In fact, as Chris points out, many of us get carried away; I am as guilty as anyone of that, but then I have a certain amount of disposable income at times...

SuzieQ, the best you can do is prepare your mind, the rest will follow. We can usually figure out pretty easily what needs to be done and how to do it if we take the time to conisder the possibilities. The unfortunate are the ones who fail to foresee what can happen and be able to respond to it while there is time.

Cant help you with all the rest but I was able to get my wife "on board" by letting her simmer on ideas for a while. For example, "Honey, I am worried that if the power was out for X amount of time, how would we get by?" and "you know we have insurance if the house was get damaged, how would we make do if the insurance did not take care of things for a few days...." It worked! Now my wife has her own bug out bag (BOB) and an emergency kit / mini - BOB in her vehicle. Worst case scenerio - everyone thinks your a paramoid ecentric.

Hi SuzieQ,

Welcome! So glad you joined us! I was out of town over the weekend and wasn't able to post.

Here is the link mentioned in this thread that drew out some of the women. You might enjoy reading it.
http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=135349&page=1

If you want to read posts by women, I suggest you click on their name, click on "view posts" to see a list of all the posts that person has made.

It is after 3 AM. So I need to get to bed. I hope you will continue to post and ask questions! :-)

Joy

Welcome. We still don't know where you're located or what the most likely natural disaster might be for you. Concentrate on that at first with "What If" questions to your husband. Just let him understand that you don't want to be a refugee.

For me it's earthquakes -- I'm in southern California and they are real here so it's a no-brainer to be ready for the next big one. Assuming the house stays upright and I can continue to live in it, with infrastructure damaged we may need to make due with what's on hand for a while. I don't count on shopping after the shake.

Why would anyone bug out and leave home? For me in SOCAL it's the threat of wildfires. How long would it take to pack up and leave? The local FD here gave a friend of mine 5 minutes in the middle of the night. What would threaten your home enough that you'd be forced to vacate at a moment's notice? (For the record, by the time he received the vacate notice, my truck had been packed for two days. Fortunately for me the fire went his way and not mine. We could have easily switched roles.)

As for your Q about using bug-out gear in your backyard, the answer is "Yes, if the situation dictates." Using survival gear helps you gain experience and familiarity with the gear. "Emergency" equipment may be held for use only in a real emergency. Survival gear may be gear you use every day and might keep in your purse for daily use as needed. The term EDC comes up a lot around here, Every Day Carry also means every day use as required.

BTW, if you have your own car, you might consider starting with a 72 hour kit that stays in the trunk. Using a car kit at home is fine too if the situation dictates.

What an excellent thread this is! By the way, I am a woman.

There are many aspects to preparedness. First is knowledge and thanks to the Internet you can acquire that with minimal outlay and no commitment from your husband. If he happens to pick up one of the Cody Lundin books (you might strategically leave "When All Hell Breaks Loose" in the bathroom) or the thin and very readable "Surviving A Disaster, Evacuation Strategies and Emergency Kits For Staying Alive" by Tony Nester, then his appreciation for preparedness may increase.

If you are by nature organized then you start with an advantage. I break it down into "sheltering-in" and evacuation.

I backed into preparedness through an early 1990s week of ice storms and rolling blackouts that was made far more tolerable by camping gear I had recently (thankfully) acquired in anticipation of going camping the next summer. After that episode I accelerated my camp gear acquisition and did so with a newly keen eye toward its dual-use for preparedness. You already have a good start since you own a tent and sleeping bags -- useful for both evacuation and sheltering in. Camping more would be an excuse to acquire more survival gear. Meanwhile here are a few things that it occurs to me are easy to do, cheap yet priceless if an emergency arises:

Evacuation: keep your cars well-maintained, the gas tanks topped off and keep an air compressor in the car(s) for inflating the tires. Keep what camp gear you have organized in one or two plastic tubs that you can quickly grab and throw in the car. Keep some cash on hand (perhaps in one of those tubs). Imagine what food, water (and medications-first aid) you all would need for two weeks and keep it on hand. Do these things and you are way ahead.

Shelter-in: You've got your two weeks of food on hand already. Imagine hot and cold weather scenarios -- what would you need to stay comfortable if the power went out for several days? Are your sleeping bags warm enough? How would you cook? Do you have a gas grille? Do you have plenty of matches? Do you have a manual can opener? Do you have flashlights/batteries and candles for light? Do you have a hand-crank radio so that you can hear the news in an emergency? How much water will your water heater store?

Preparedness is about more than paranoia, prudence or gear acquisition. Do you have easily retrievable copies of financial statements, insurance and other important papers?

I have found that I enjoy the logistical exercise of preparedness to the degree that I have pursued it. Living where I do I'm skeptical about the feasibility of evacuating no matter how much fuel I have or even if we'll have any warning. And the truth is I'd have to be very hungry before I'd even attempt to gut a fish, let alone hunt down Bambi (with the bow and arrow I don't have). Further incentive to keep more canned tuna on hand.

Meanwhile, we enjoy camping -- periodic recreational exercises in survival -- and being prepared for power outages.

Good luck and best wishes!

Think of terms what you do everyday of your life:

Sleep; Eat; Drink; Bathroom calls; Bathing; etc. In cold, hot, rainy, and dry weather!

This will help you organize your priorities.

Part of it is having to look until you find the one that's right for you. I worked my way through a bunch of flashlights until I found the one that works for me.

I generally build kits from the stuff I upgrade from and give them away. It gets people in the be prepared mode and I figure if I slowly equip the people around me, I wont have to take care of as many people if there's an emergency.

Well, I think most people will advise you to take it one step at a time.

A good place to start is simply to build up a reserve of food and water. Instead of having one can of refried beans on hand, have ten. Every time you go to the store, but one more than you need for that week or month and stock/rotate what you normally eat.

Water storage is also easy if you keep an open mind. Simply filling washed two-liter soda bottles begins to build a supply that is easy to move and store.

Add a few flashlights, batteries and first aid kit/medicine as well as battery powered radios will get you through quite a bit if you are staying through the emergency in your house.

Regarding your husband, one technique would be to play into a guy's natural desire to provide and protect his family. I wouldn't be blunt about it, but most guys are a bit thick in the head and could use a few hints.

Good idea. I've got a couple family members that need to be jump started.