Well here I am, sitting in my living room, awaiting the arrival of Hurricane Sandy. “But UIG!” I hear you say. “You’re in Hamilton, not NYC! What gives?” And yes, it’s true, I am not among the evacuated or even the affected. I’m actually at home sick, and it’s just a coincidence that a raging storm is getting all the attention.
And when I say “sick” I basically mean unable to breathe without extreme pain and fatigue. I am asthmatic, and low pressure systems, continued rain, rotting leaves, etc. do a number on my lungs. It’s weird for sure, and it’s one of those things where I always feel like an idiot calling in sick to work. I look fine and I don’t have a fever, I’m not barfing or contagious. I just struggle to breathe. Which, ok fair enough, is a bit of trouble. I mean, think of the alternative (ie not breathing) But it still seems like a strange affliction. Especially since my asthma is extremely well controlled. I can run and do karate and kickboxing without much trouble, under normal circumstances. But every once in awhile I get my ass (or my lungs I suppose) handed to me and my body seizes up in a perfect storm of constricted airways, sore muscles (from trying to breathe normally) and exhaustion. I don’t recommend it.
All right, enough about me. We probably should be talking about Sandy and what we are doing to prepare for the worst! OMG Frankenstorm!
Not to make light of the situation because I am watching all the coverage and it’s intense and awesome – and awesome in the truest sense of the word, as in when you look at the size of this storm and it actually inspires awe. Not your everyday average run of the mill “awesome!” you know?
And so I am watching all this coverage and wondering what will happen, and all this talk about emergency preparedness gets me thinking – how does one prepare for something like this? I get that when you’re in the thick of it, you’re possibly evacuated or at least given specific instructions as to what to do and how to prepare for the worst. And I know that given where we live (if you are reading this from southern Ontario especially) we are pretty safe this time – at worst we are going to get a bunch of brutal wind and some rain, likely. But what about power outages? Loss of essential services? What to do?
I went grocery shopping yesterday – a pretty typical Sunday afternoon event for me – and as I was making the list, The Genealogist suggested I pick up a big jug of water “just in case”. So I did, because that’s a damn good idea right? And it’s not exactly alarmist, just buying a jug of water, is it? And then I started thinking what else could we possibly need in the event of a crazy ass storm? And I honestly couldn’t think of a single other thing. Water? Check. Anything else? No clue.
People! I AM APPARENTLY THE LAST PERSON YOU WANT IN A CRISIS!!!
Seriously. Useless.
So I decided to brush up on what else would be required in a crisis situation. It turns out we’re in pretty good shape with things like food, flashlights, etc., but it made me think that we have it pretty easy around here. In southern Ontario, we don’t have to worry too much, do we? We’re not on a coast where we have to worry about tsunami, we don’t live precisely on a fault line where earthquakes can be really severe, there are no volcanoes… But does that make us a bit too complacent? Probably.
I guess you don’t want to live in fear that every single storm is going to be the one that knocks out power for days on end, but I think it’s a good idea to be prepared. And I also think that few of us around here are prepared.
Maybe I’m wrong? How about you, blogfriends, do you have supplies for an emergency? Are your supplies ready to go, in case you are evacuated or have to leave your home? Could you survive 72 hours without essential services? To be honest, I think we’ll be ok this time, but it’s something to consider for the future.
GOD. Why so serious, UIG?
But really, stay safe y’all. And let’s pour one out, shall we?
The Urban Info Girl 