We have experienced some weather extremes in the last year throughout many areas of the country. There has been unprecedented drought while others have experienced flooding like they have never faced before. Places like San Francisco suffered from one of the hottest summers on record while the south experienced extreme drought for several months. There were numerous tornadoes throughout the midwest over a two to three day period. While weather extremes exist and will exist the weather seems to have affected all of us adversely to some extent this year.
With these weather extremes many people have taken notice and made preparations to protect themselves, their family and their property while many have not. Simple steps can be taken to help protect oneself prior to or during emergencies. All families should have an emergency plan and a disaster or emergency kit along with a supply of tow to three days of water. Everyone should consider a weather alert radio as necessary as a smoke alarm. These radios can alert you of impending disasters such as tornadoes or floods along with many other warnings. Many companies sell these products.
All families should have these products. Companies have developed Emergency Survival kits that are made for all natural and manmade disasters. They contain items that are essential during an emergency such as flashlights, emergency blankets, rain ponchos, an emergency radio, manual can opener, an all purpose tool and many other necessities to handle almost any type of emergency. Almost all are packaged for easy transport with space left for storage of essential items like medication, bottled water, and copies of important documents that can be stored in the waterproof document containers that are included in many kits. While these kits range in price from $50.00 to $200.00 they are priceless when needed.
The other item every household should have at least one of, is a weather radio. They range in price from $30.00 to $150.00 depending on the complexity one desires. They can be life savers during the night or during power outages due to their battery backup ability.
The bottom line is with the weather as strange as it has been in the past couple of years everyone needs to become more aware of the dangers they can be faced with and take every available precaution to ensure their safety as much as possible.
