2019’s hurricane season is here and so is the severe summer flooding. Every week the weather related news cycle has been dominated by stories of extreme flooding. The recent flooding all around the world has left millions with destroyed homes and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of water damage.
While you may not think about preparing for emergencies every day, it’s important that you take the time to do so. If you wait to start preparing for severe weather your chances at properly protecting yourself decrease significantly.
We understand that the process of preparing and protecting yourself from flash flooding, hurricanes, or severe water damage can be quite overwhelming. That’s why early preparation is so important. It eliminates your need to scramble in the midst of the population chaos that is preparing for the same incoming damage at the same exact time.
One of the best places to start when it comes to preparing for severe weather emergencies is with your Emergency Preparedness Kit. This kit will hold a variety of supplies that will serve as a building block towards your goal of overall preparedness and protection.
You might be asking, “What should my Emergency Preparedness Kit contain?” – Lucky for you that’s where we come in. Check out the best things to have in your kit for severe weather & flooding.
Food & Water
Of course! You knew that. When creating your kit make sure that you have enough food and water to last for 3 days. Try to buy foods that are simple and have a long shelf life to ensure that you won’t be eating anything contaminated if you should lose power. As for water, try to stock up on a couple cases of bottled water since you never know what could happen to your water supply when a hurricane or flooding arrives.
Medicine
Find convenient and easily stored cases that you can parcel out all of the necessary medication you might be taking and keep that case secured in your emergency kit. If you do not take any prescribed medication it’s still important to keep medicinal supplies in your kit. Most people feel that if they do not take any medication then they don’t need to include that portion of the emergency kit.
Don’t fall for that!
Make sure to pack simple medications such as aspirin or Advil. Having these kinds of medications on hand will come in handy if you should need them. It only makes your kit that much better and more wholesome.
Flood Products
Flooding is the number one natural disaster in the United States. With every severe weather storm there is most likely flooding involved. In order to properly protect your home against flooding and water damage it is extremely important to have flood products on hand and ready to deploy.
The common issue with flood products is that they are time consuming to deploy and require a lot of house space in order to store them correctly. When it comes to your emergency preparedness kit it is imperative to have products that save you time and labor so that once you need to start deploying it won’t be a chaotic process.
Find products that are compact, lightweight, and easy-to-use. You can check out a wide variety of those exact products right HERE.
Important Documents
Your critical documents are some of the most important things you will need to protect against a severe storm. While they may not be deployed from your emergency kit we do find it extremely valuable to have copies of this documentation with your kit so that you know exactly where they all are located if you should need to take them all with you.
Just having copies of your documentation is not enough though. We recommend storing electronic copies of your important documents on a password-protected thumb drive and in a cloud based software such as Google and if you feel comfortable doing so, give a copy to a trusted relative or friend outside your area. This way, you’ll have a record of critical identification documents; medical information including where and how to get life-saving supplies and medications; financial and legal documents; and insurance information as well as important phone numbers, instructions and email addresses.
Severe weather and flooding can be frightening, we understand that. That’s why we are committed to helping and being a resource in any way that we can. The best advice for people is to start preparing as soon as possible for any kind of severe weather. Once you have a preparedness plan & kit in place the easier it will be to protect yourself.
