Emergency Preparedness Kit

[jeffrey]

A year ago, when a blackout cut off power for more than 50 million people from Michigan and Ohio to the Northeast, Katherine Kotopoulos was the only person in her Manhattan office with a flashlight. She also had a pair of sneakers, which came in handy walking home.

Kotopoulos, an administrator at Weill Medical College, has a larger emergency supply at home that includes a water purification kit, glow sticks and a first-aid kit.

Kotopoulos, 30, is hardly typical. A recent American Red Cross survey found only two in 10 feel very prepared for a catastrophe...

If you decide to put together a kit from scratch, costs can quickly mount. But a number of companies and organizations sell prepackaged emergency kits. Among them:

The Red Cross has an emergency preparedness kit that comes in a backpack. It contains the basic necessities for an adult for three days. It will sell for about $50 through individual Red Cross chapters and on the organization's Web site starting next month.

The organization also sells a safety tube for about $5. It includes a water pouch, dust mask, whistle and six-hour light stick... [read more at usatoday.com]

[luna-mia]

And I was one of those MI people! Ughhh that was awful. Oh the horrors. Can you just IMAGINE working in the hospital ER when this happened. I should write a book. Its amazing the stories everyone had. I was talking to the girl at the pet store and her boss wouldn't let her leave since they couldn't secure the building. They had to pour peroxide in the tropical fish tanks in lieu of the water pumps pumping in oxygen!

Am I better prepared?? Yes. But we can never be well prepared enough.