What's this?

Is that a Thursday Three I see? Didn't folks in my blog circle used to do such things many moons ago? Let's see if I still remember how to do this.

1. With the recent hurricane that hit the Gulf Coast, it has once again been made obvious that being prepared ahead of time can be the difference between life and death. Do you and your family keep an emergency pack of supplies ready to go at a moment's instant as so many people recommend? What all is in it?

Unlike the well prepared Possum (much less the overprepared Michael Chertoff), we have nothing prepared. Oh, the diaper bag is usually packed, and sometimes has old boxes of raisins & other snacks, but we seem a bit ill-prepared for disaster. Since our biggest troubles come from snow up here, I don't know if there's a whole lot to do but make sure the snowblower has gas in it and get some extra milk & water in case of a blizzard.

2. If, heaven forbid, anything as destructive as a hurricane or earthquake or fire or flood were to hit your community, and assuming you stayed around or couldn't get out, what are some of the skills you have that you think could be utilized to start the recovery efforts?

Hmm. My history skills will be even more useless than they are now. If I have a full tank of propane, I can grill food if there's any to be found. I do own some tools, so if I can figure out how to use them properly, I might be of some help.

3. How safe do you feel in your own community when it comes to disaster preparedness?

Well, on the one hand, nobody that lives in the neighborhood has guns, so there's hopefully fewer thugs; I guess that also means less defense, but that's one of the big debates about having them up here. We're a tight-knit community, so I'd hope that we'd all stick together and help each other out. We're as safe as I suspect humans can be - if we band together to protect each other, we'll be fine. If we choose to look out for ourselves, we don't stand much of a chance.