Are YOU prepared?

Hurricane Harvey.  Hurricane Irma.  Wildfires in the mountains.  Earthquakes in Idaho and Mexico. Flooding around the world. 
What's next?!?  Are YOU Prepared??

With all of the disasters that have been happening lately, I have been worrying over and over about my friends who have been in affected areas, worrying if they have enough food, water, and basic supplies to get them through whatever situation they are facing with flooding, power outages, evacuations, grocery stores being cleared out and unable to be restocked.  The thing is, we can't control nature and we don't know how hard we are going to be hit.  But we know that shelves clear out within hours when there is warning of a hurricane or blizzard, and when there isn't advance warning...well, it's too late to prepare if you're waiting until the last minute either way.  You don't have to search long to find stories from the last few weeks of grocery stores being cleared out and people waiting for hours in hopes of getting what's left at the grocery stores.

I have a friend in Florida who managed to dodge the worst of hurricane damage last week...but they are still going to be without power for 3 weeks.  3 WEEKS. That's more than enough time for everything in the fridge & freezer to either be eaten or spoiled, and likely everything else in the kitchen to be used up. Cooking is going to be a challenge without power for that long.

One of my biggest passions about being a Thrive Life consultant is that I want everyone to be prepared for any event that may happen.  There are a number of ways to be prepared, starting with storing extra water, a flashlight, and extra food.  Here are some advantages we have with Thrive Life food that is available to us:

• The meat is all cooked and ready to eat.  You don't need to worry about meat spoiling or dealing with cooking & cleaning up meat germs in a disaster.
• The food can be eaten straight out of the can without cooking it, if you really don't have a way to cook.  And if you do have a way to cook, it only takes a few minutes to soften the food and warm it up to make a nice hot meal.
• Our food has a LONG shelf life!  Whether you want to cook up something this week when you're too rushed to cook, or you want to save it until you're snowed in...the food will still be there and it will still taste good.
• Thrive Life food tastes GOOD and is high quality.  While there are many options out there for shelf stable calories to have on hand for a disaster, very few of those options actually taste good.  Personally, I would rather have food in my house that I would actually enjoy eating.  I love that this food tastes so good that I don't have to wait until I'm starving to eat it - I use it in my everyday cooking!
• We have SO MUCH variety in our line of food!!  Seriously, you can make just about any recipe!!!

Ready.gov is an excellent resource for information on preparing for natural disasters.  It also includes a complete packing list of items you should have packed and ready to use in the event of an emergency.  I know the idea of packing a bag can be a little overwhelming and intimidating if you haven’t already gathered supplies and packed them together.  But it doesn’t have to be.  There are things you can do today that don’t cost money:

• Store water.  Each family member needs at least 1 gallon of clean drinking water per day.  Ideally, you should store it in water storage jugs, but if you don’t have any available, at least store extra water in something.  Make sure you sanitize the water and store it properly by following the steps in the link provided here.  Storing an extra case of bottled water would be helpful and cheap.
• Gather emergency contact information.  Remember that your cell phone may not be working during an extended situation, and if you need to call family for help or just to check in, you’ll need their phone number recorded somewhere other than your phone itself in case your phone dies.
• Gather important records such as insurance documents, birth certificates, medical records, etc.  Keep them all in a place where you can quickly grab them in the event of evacuation.
• Grab a clean change of clothes among the clothes you already have and set them aside.  I recommend putting it inside a ziploc bag to protect them.  You’ll need a clean change of clothes if you end up in a situation, and you’ll be glad you have it.

Things that will require money that are super important include:

• Three day supply of food.  (This might be the most important thing for me!!  No, your kids won’t just eat any weird gross food if they’re hungry enough.  It needs to taste good!)
• Extra medicine.  Think about it – if you are dependent on medicine of any kind, and you didn’t have access to it for a week, would that affect things for you?
• Batteries & flashlights.  These seem to be the first to disappear at the stores when bad weather is predicted.
• Cash.  We live in a credit card world, which works really great!  Unless the power is out or systems are overrun and credit card machines aren’t working.  That cash you stash away could be your ticket to a tank of gas to get you to safety.

My hope for you is that you will take the time now to revisit what your emergency plan is. Make a non-digital list of family and friends phone numbers.  Get some jugs of water filled up and stored away.  Make sure you have some flashlights and fresh batteries on hand. Stock up on extra medicine so you can go a few weeks with what you have on hand. Gather up a stove and fuel that can be used to cook if you're without power.  Get your shelves stocked with some extra food - for yourselves AND your pets.  Please don't wait until it's too late - do it now.

Stay safe!
Sabrina


Let me know if you're ready to get started on getting some food!  You can browse my website at www.SabrinasPantry.ThriveLife.com anytime.  But please email me if you want to get started so that I can help you get the best prices on our food, and advise you on what foods will work best for your situation.  I'm here to help.