By now, you should have plans in place for a variety of different scenarios. These would include plans for:
–Emergency evacuation from your home.
–Lengthy power outage due to weather or other cause.
–Stranded at home for several days or more.
All the planning in the world though isn’t going to help much if you don’t do test runs. It is true that practice makes perfect. By running through your plans in real time, you’ll likely discover holes or gaps in your planning. It is vastly better to find those problems now, while you have time to address them, than when you’re doing it for real.
This week, I want you to pick at least one realistic scenario and play it out as a drill or exercise. Make it as real as you can while still being safe. For example, if you choose to drill for a lengthy power outage, turn off your circuit breakers for a day or two. You may want to leave the ones on for your fridge and freezer, just pretend they aren’t working. There’s little sense in letting food go to waste just for the sake of the exercise.
If you’re doing an evacuation, make it a surprise to the family so as to get their blood pumping. Give them a short period of time to follow the plan for getting out of the house.
Just as important as the practice is the post-drill evaluation. Sit down with everyone and go over how it went. What worked and what didn’t? What needs to change? Did everyone remember their responsibilities?
Be sure to ask for input from each family member. Sometimes we, the planners and leaders (so to speak), forget this important element to planning. We get so caught up in what we already know and want to share that we forget to see things from other perspectives.
Even if you are the only one in your home, you can still learn a thing or two when you do exercises like these. You may find out you overlooked a key element in your planning.
Yes, drills are a pain in the arse for most of us. It throws us off our normal schedules and interrupts our daily lives.
But, then again, so do disasters.
Your assignments this week:
1) Do one or more drills, as discussed above. Let me know how it goes by shooting me an email — Jim@SurvivalWeekly.com.
2) Start making out your Christmas wish lists. Yes, it is only September but hey, December will be here before you know it!
3) Take a good, hard look at your food storage. How many days/weeks could you feed your family on just what you have on hand right now? Is it enough?
