Tuesday, June 22, 2010

A Prep Exercise

Here in NW Iowa we have myriad small disasters that can happen. We're at the top of tornado alley and we see a lot of thunderstorms with high winds, excessive rain, hail, lightening, you get the idea. We see the same weather patterns in winter, when temperatures alter the precipitation form to snow/ice/sleet. Add in fires, floods and freak industrial accidents and power outages are a distinct possibility. Usually at a most inopportune time, like o'dark-thirty.

We've had a few bad storms the past couple of weeks, so it's been on my mind. Every time they hit, I'm sure about the location of 1 flashlight (out of 3 or 4) and my storm lamp, but I'm uncertain what our battery situation is or where exactly the extra fuel for that lamp is.
This is a little worrying. So, this week I'm designating a recently cleared shelf as flashlight haven, and I'm going to find EVERY flashlight we have and all the batteries. I'm going to test them all, assure myself of their backup batteries and then store them in their proper places. To a lesser extent I will do the same with our candles/lamps. They don't need batteries, but why can I never find a match when I need one? :-)
After rounding them all up and evaluating their condition I can make a list of needed items to make our emergency lighting situation more robust and fail safe.

When was the last time you checked your flashlights and batteries? Easier to do it on a sunny day than in the middle of a bad storm.

1 comment:

Michael said...

I keep a small flashlight in my spare car key and a little pinch light on my car keys. I keep 3 flashlights in my car. If the lights go out in the dark I can always get to my keys and get the lights out of the car (mini-mag in the glove box, big head-cracker mag-light in the pocket behind the front seat, lantern gizmo in the trunk). I also keep a spare set of batteries in the car and go though the car once a year, replace all the batteries and toss the year-old batteries into the junk drawer for anyone to use.