Longer Term Planning
At the beginning of this book we talked about having the very basics: a mere three days -- or 72 hours -- of food, water and other items that can help you through the immediate term following major disasters. Sometimes however, it's prudent to think a little longer term.
In fact, the U.S. government and FEMA now encourage Americans to have one to two weeks’ worth of emergency supplies on hand just in case something happens on a large enough scale that it takes time for rescue workers to get to you. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, some people were left to fend for themselves for two full weeks.
A full five weeks after the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011, people were still living in emergency shelters and barely have enough food for one meager meal each day.
While you cannot plan for every conceivable situation, you can try to plan for common ones. Even if you had a full month's worth of food and water on hand in your home, it would have done you no good at all if your home was one of those washed away completely in a tsunami like the one that hit Japan. In most cases however, having extra emergency supplies might make the difference between your family getting through the disaster relatively unharmed-or suffering through painfully.