Yes, it's the time of the year again - time for you to do an audit of your preparedness situation with regard to Natural Disasters and Large Scale Emergencies.

First of all, revisit your risk profile - has anything changed upwind of you? Are your local government services shrinking to a point of invisibility? Do you know your neighbors?

Take a look at the severe weather that's happened in your area in the last 12 months. Was there anything that happened near you that was a "wow, that's close" situation? For example, we had a severe straight line wind incident last year that knocked over many trees just 500 yards away from my house, it even knocked over a stone barn. So over the winter and early spring, I did a "fall-down" assessment of trees around my home and had the riskiest trees taken down. In that same storm, we had a 72 hour power failure - fuels and systems worked, but only as a result of preplanning. We also had a fairly heavy winter around here - and my backhoe went kaput for snow removal!

In terms of large-scale emergencies from man-made incidents and accidents, we can certainly look to the Gulf Oil Spill as a current model that will affect millions and cost billions - but one that you really can't do much short of pack up and move somewhere else to deal with - and that's got to be on your planning list as well - for an extreme situation - we're talking abandonment of your home - could you pack out what you need plus a little of what you want in, say, 24 hours? What would you need to generate income when you got somewhere else?

In terms of large-local incidents - like Tennesee flooding - how equipped are you to be able to help those who lost everything? What will YOU be able to contribute to recovery efforts? What do YOU know how to do that is needed to help restore and rebuild? Skills and networks are critical.