Note To Future Self

When we have headlamps?

It doesn’t show, but it’s about 8 degrees and raining.

(I think these are the first artsy night time-lapse shots I’ve taken in … decades. Does it show?)

… still need their beauty sleep.

Even if they’re a bit hard to convince most (all) of the time.

Well, after three tries at ‘emergency preparedness’, I suppose we might as well share what we’ve learned.

there’s tons and tons of stuff it would be handy to have, but just a few things that are really essential.

1. a plan. If ‘the big one’ had hit your neck of the woods at 1:51 pm, or 2:20 pm or 3:57 am, where would you go? who would get the kids? what if one or both of you was injured?

As you make you plans bear in mind that (a) public transit will stop running (b) the roads will be gridlocked to the tune of 2 hours to go 7 km and (c) the phones will be jammed. you won’t even get a dial tone. you might be able to send texts, but they will take 10 – 40 minutes to arrive. Oh, and bridges, tunnels and overpasses might be shut.

2. Water. before this all happened, I assumed that in an emergency, I would just deploy my camping skills to filter water from the river. What I hadn’t considered is that any event that knocks out the freshwater pumping stations will have done the same to the wastewater pumping stations. Your municipality’s response to this will be to deliberately contaminate the surface water flowing through your community, by means of  diesel-powered pumps stationed at the the manholes nearest a ‘natural drain’ .

So, you need to store water yourself. A three day supply reckoned at 3 liters per person per day is recommended. Our experience was that this was a comfortable stock to have on hand. If like, me, you’ve thought about putting water aside, but never quite managed it, here are some instructions for storing water using the plastic jugs that I guarantee are sitting in your recycling bin right now. just do it. right now. Water stored this way does give an off taste to tea and coffee, so make a note to buy a couple of liters next time you’re at the store.

3. Okay, now the fun stuff. what should you buy? honestly, not all that much. if you’re keen, there are lists all over the show. We found it most useful to have: Hand sanitizer (a little goes a long way – 100mL lasted through a month of regular use), bleach, paper towels, disposable diapers, single serve packets of instant coffee nicked from hotels, a battery operated radio and the non-rechargeable batteries to run it. If you don’t keep a lot of cash in the house, you might want to put some aside, as any stores that are open when the power is out won’t take plastic.

In addition to what to store, have a thought as to where you keep it. How much broken glass will you need to walk over to find the flashlights?

wow. that was a lot to read. Here’s a nice picture of the grizzly bear to look at while you fill up your water containers.

Speaking of supposedly fun things…

we’ve had another one.

We’re okay, have power and water and internet. patience. not so much.

The first rule of big girl underwear club is … you know…

The second rule of big girl underwear club, though, is that you have to use the potty every time.

And the sixteenth rule of big girl underwear club is … if you want to store spares on your head, that’s cool with us.