Here in WA, every time a big windstorm or something is predicted, most people run to the stores for the necessities: water, Dinty Moore, tuna, diapers and beer. EVERY TIME they have carts filled with drinking water. And I always wonder what they do with it when the event is over, water the petunias?

Pre-plan and act. If you need to, gas, bread and milk. Done.

Sue

Top off the truck's gas tank and I'm done . . with buying. If it's a wildfire, I take my full gas tank home and load the truck. Then I maintain SA on the fire.

Hmm. I lived in Christchurch, and I have mixed feelings. I have friends and family there, but naturally I am glad I am not there right now. Except that I'm not (glad, that is). I'd like to be there helping out.

I wouldn't be queuing outside the gas station, ATM or supermarket because when I lived there I had at least three days' worth of prepared food and a couple of weeks' worth of staples that could be easily cooked, and camp stoves/cooking equipment. I had water stored, and a cache of stuff outside the house in case it collapsed and I couldn't get to the main store. I had some cash on hand, and I always kept the petrol tank in the car half full or more.

In addition I did SAR and Civil Defence training, and I have access to amateur radio equipment. I told friends and neighbours to be prepared (and referred them to the handy Civil Defence checklist on the back of *everyone's* copy of Yellow Pages). It saddens me a little that I cannot be there to help, since I have the training and the gear, but it saddens me more that there are still people who are ill-prepared despite the fact that the information is freely available, and, as we have discussed, preparations can be made cheaply and slowly in a piecemeal but effective way.

Having said all that I cannot predict how I would react to the situation. I might freeze, or break down, or make poor decisions, or find that I didn't actually have the stuff I need. I might also be injured or killed. But, I would have had no worries in advance of (or during) the event happening because I am confident I would be able to help myself and others around me.

My family and friends are safe, but I am sorry for those who didn't make it. In my new environment I have to worry about flooding, heavy snow, extreme heat, and invasion from the North. Preparations are different, but I have done *something*.

Sorry. The news from NZ has been quite sobering. I don't want to blame the people who were not prepared, but it does frustrate me.

A

Oh, and I had a 'regular' telephone hooked up to the phone socket because I knew that my cordless phone wouldn't work if there was a power outage.

A

Same thing happens here. Bottled water and gasoline are the first things to go. I have the obligatory 3-day supply of water, the means to purify more, and about a weeks worth of food.

About the only pre-thinking I do is to top off the tank whenever Santa Anas are forecast.

I think everybody does what I do whenever I rotate the water in my kit: drink it. All those water bottles everybody is carting around.... Yup, thats where it goes.

P.S. 6 month old water is really only palatable when it's cold.

In terms of preparedness, one of the things I worry about is gasoline. I experienced the gas shortages of the '70s; it was not fun. Odd-even fueling days, no gas if you had more than 1/2 a tank, 10 gallons max otherwise, and sometimes spending over an hour in line for that.

I keep two 5-gallon jerry can's full of gas. Each month I dump one into the Jeep and immediately refill it, so the gas doesn't go bad. But I'd like to have more. I've been toying with the idea of getting a 55-gallon drum and a transfer pump, filling the drum 5-gallons at a time via jerry cans. I have yet to find out what zoning/fire laws might apply.

Assuming a closed drum of unleaded gasoline with the proper amount of fuel stabilizer, does anyone know how long gasoline can be stored before it becomes unusable? Would drawing-off and replacing 5 to 10 gallons a month make any difference?

"P.S. 6 month old water is really only palatable when it's cold."

A. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just flat. Pour from one container to another several times (creating lots of bubbles), and you probably wouldn't know the difference.

B. We have good, tested community well water here. When I empty a bottle, I ... wait for it... REFILL IT, and put it in my storage area.

C. When emptied, dry it and put the cap back on. When high winds are forecast, just pull out the empties and fill them.

It isn't the winds, it isn't the warnings, it isn't the lack of bottled water, it's the inability of many people to line up all three of their brain cells and think for five seconds.

Sue

[quote=Mark_R

P.S. 6 month old water is really only palatable when it's cold. [/quote]

Standards of palatability go out the window when you are really, really thirsty.....

I'm not sure there is a way to prepare for the building you are in collapsing on you or bricks coming down on your car.

You know, if I actually did have 30 minutes warning of a disaster, I'd go buy chocolate. I am simply incapable of keeping an emergency supply in the house. No trouble keeping my hands off the canned chickpeas though
Remember during a disaster once everyone is done running in circles and screaming, there tends to be a lot of sitting around - might as well make sure you have supplies of your distraction of choice available. Escapist fiction is also good