Tuesday I attended a Red Cross presentation on earthquake preparedness. I wrote about that a little yesterday too, but I want to treat a different aspect of it.
Long time readers can not only guess that I have sat through many preparedness presentations, but may remember me presenting to them, or helping them assemble kits, or something like that. You may have also attended many other presentations. I still encourage you to check out this one.
First of all, there is always something that you don't know. The presenter gave me two new thoughts that I had never had before.
1. If you are in a car during an earthquake, I knew that you should stop, not by anything that could fall on you, and stay in the car. I had not thought about turning your head, but it is very logical that the earthquake could be interpreted as a collision, and that the air bag could break your nose on an already rough day. That made perfect sense.
2. I know about going through and checking for fires and risks for fires and explosions. I had never thought about setting the fire extinguisher outside once you have determined that you don't need it, but yes, your neighbors could. I remember being touched by people hanging out chargers after storms so people who didn't have power could charge their phones by the grace of someone who did; there are lots of ways to think about other people.
Beyond that, it doesn't always have to take learning something completely new to be inspired. I have gotten a little lax on preparedness, due to too many other things going on. That's an easy thing to have happen, but not really good. I like the containers he is using for water storage. We have stored water; I have never loved what we were using for it. I think I will switch. Also, at Costco two days later I picked up a fire extinguisher. It is an easy thing to do, and fulfills a potential need.
The fire extinguisher may have been my first acquisition because of its association with thinking of your neighbors after the presentation. I have been thinking a lot about community and interpersonal relations lately, and have been wanting to do more. Preparedness can be something that we share. A lot of Prepare Out Loud was about having conversations and showing people what you are doing to help them get over their preparedness inertia.
It is easy to want to avoid thinking about preparedness, because you are thinking about a scary thing and then having to do a lot of stuff for it, but these things are manageable. It was easy to pick up a fire extinguisher. There are things I could do very quickly that would cost money, and things that I can do for free, and it is just a matter of doing something, and then another thing, in an orderly and manageable manner.
So, I am probably going to get back to emergency preparedness here. Recently this has been much more about spiritual and mental preparedness, but things go in cycles, and it may be time to get back to physical (at least after I finish reacting to a few things).
For now, if you are in the Cascades region, and will be in the path of a quake started by the Juan de Fuca plate, check and see what the Red Cross has for you:
http://www.redcross.org/news/event/local/or/Prepare-Out-Loud
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