Introduction
Natural disasters happen... sometimes every single day somewhere in the world. Some events are so severe that people are still recovering from them years later. Some last just a few days or weeks, then life goes back to what most of us consider normal.
Have you ever considered how you might take care of yourself or your loved ones if a disaster strikes in your area? Do you know whether you would have food to eat or even clean water to drink when it's desperately needed?
That's what this book is about.
If you've watched even a few minutes of the news on TV in the past couple of years, or briefly browsed any newspaper online or in print, you've probably seen or heard about one disaster after another. As the final touches are being put into place for this book, Japan has suffered one of the worst earthquakes in recorded history, followed by one of the worst known Tsunami waves that literally wiped out entire towns. If those two events weren't bad enough, they caused another that's even scarier: Potential nuclear crisis.
You may not live near a nuclear plant and you may be so far from the sea that you cannot imagine ever experiencing a Tsunami wave of destruction. Chances are though; the area you do live in is prone to some other type of nature-made event. In the United States alone we have areas of the country that are terrorized by tornados multiple times a year. Some parts of the country get so much snowfall that people can't leave their house for a full week. Sometimes freezing weather seizes pumps at a gas or water plant, knocking out service to hundreds of thousands of people. There are areas of the country that live with wildfire risks, and areas that are known for getting earthquakes regularly. No portion of the country seems 100 percent immune to nature's events. And that means no family should ever be caught unprepared.
You can't plan for every single potential crisis or emergency that might ever arise in your life, but you can definitely make basic preparations. Some events you already know are likely to happen again because they're common in your area. Florida gets hit by a hurricane almost every year and Kansas or Oklahoma usually sees at least one tornado. Basic preparations make sure you can take care of yourself and your loved ones when the next big event happens. And sometimes those basic preparations help for the surprise, unexpected events too.
This book is designed to help you get started. It is not all encompassing and does not try to help you prepare for anything and everything that may come your way. It is also not designed to scare you into buying things. Instead, it gets you started by giving you practical, affordable ways to take care of your family in an emergency.
The first section of this book teaches you the very basics. The minimum you need to do to ensure you and your family are taken care of for a few days immediately following any major disaster or natural event. The second section of this book addresses common natural disasters that happen in various parts of the world, and gives you the basic steps to prepare for or survive safely through each one. The last section of this book goes into more advanced personal emergency planning techniques and addresses ways to have supplies on hand for longer-term events.