I was talking with a friend today while eating at Taco Bell (we sat there drinking pop for a few hours talking & watching people coming in & out “mostly watching the cute womenfolk”.)

And the talk turned to what to prepare for and not to prepare for. Living in Toledo Ohio there is not a lot of natural disaster situations that are likely to happen. Tornados are about it for mother nature, a lot of man-made disasters could come about like a tanker truck or rail accident involving hazardous material.

Tornados really seem to scare people that have not been around them, I don’t think much about them as they are very selective in what damage they do and cut a narrow path and can go through the area and only hit a few houses. They bounce and seem to skip over most areas in their path. At least the ones in this area act like this.

The truck or rail accident seems like the most likely problem, and a simple bug out kit and awareness of the event so you know what way to run seems like the best answer.

I suppose a terrorist event is a concern, but not a high one like it would be in a larger city.

We also have a few refineries (one of them I could hit with a stone from a slingshot) but these places are not really dangerous more then ¼ mile away from them, and probably not even then. There have been a few large fires that burn very furiously, but not really the dangerous thing they look to be. My dad was a fireman for 41-years and now my brother is one (coming on 20-years) and the joke is that when the Sun refinery needs to be updated or rebuilt they have a fire so they have to rebuild & update it.


There is a nuke plant 30-miles away, but a terrorist would be very hard pressed to do much to it. I use to work there and it’s a well protected place.


I was just wondering about other parts of the country (world) and what you plan for and what you don’t plan for or feel the need to not plan for.


Looking at past history of my area of the country, I don’t worry about tidal waves, earth quakes, forest fires, large scale flooding. These are things that just don’t happen here. I know someone will post that an earth quake (insert your favorite disaster here) could happen tomorrow, but being realistic it’s not going to happen.