Preparation Motivation

I was 12 when Hurricane Iwa hit our windward Oahu home. Weather forecasting wasn’t incredibly accurate back then so there was little time to prepare. By the time we got home from school, the wind was pushing against our banana trees so hard they were almost horizontal. We boarded up our shuddering louvered windows, shut all the bedroom doors and hunkered down in the hallway until the worst of it was over.

Our neighborhood fared pretty well for the most part, considering that thousands of businesses and homes were severely damaged or outright destroyed. Down the hill from us, the roof of our neighbor’s A-frame home lifted off and landed on another house a block away. I still remember the peek-a-boo view of the interior of their house through the flapping black tar roofing paper.

The storm hit on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, which is why we had extra food on hand. Otherwise, we may not have been so well-stocked. We only lost our power for a week and considered ourselves lucky since some parts of Kauai went without for a month. Being a kid, there was an element of adventure to the aftermath. The local market let us in and we shopped by flashlight for canned goods, dry ice & other essentials. We did our cooking outside on a camping stove. At night we played board games by lantern light and periodically turned on our battery-operated radio for news updates.

We were incredibly lucky not to have been one of the many families who were forced to evacuate. My dad did a great job with emergency preparation. His island childhood was shaped by his experiences with depression-era lack followed by stringent WWII rations. And his Eagle Scout training must have factored in somehow. He always kept several 5 gallon jugs of water on hand and a decent stash of propane to run the lanterns & stove.

Without those pre-planned provisions, that week would have gone much differently for us. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. Because in all honesty, I am not ready for any of the myriad life-as-we-know-it disruptors that could come our way in Southern California. Not yet anyway. So I’m doing my research and taking small realistic steps to ensure we’re not caught off-guard when/if __________.

I’m starting with water. Stored water and a portable filtration gizmo. Because water buys you time to figure out what to do next. Storage is currently an issue for me so I’m not really focused on outfitting an impenetrable fortress. Also, living in close proximity to a nuclear power plant means that it’s smart to have an exit plan to a less toxic location. I’m making a plan to go and a plan to stay – these days, it can’t hurt to be prepared either way.