This morning I woke up, went to the bathroom, turned the tap on, and no water came out.
I went to the kitchen, but no water came out of that tap either.
I went to the fridge to see if the water jug we keep in the door had anything in it, but the jug wasn't in there. The kettle was empty too.
I discovered that the only water in the house was in the fish tank (yuck) and in the toilet cisterns (double yuck).
A quick walk out to the street showed that there was a burst water main a few houses away. A call to SA Water indicated that it might be two hours before the water supply would come back on.
Fortunately there was milk in the house, or everyone would have been very thirsty indeed!
The earthquakes in Christchurch and Japan and the Queensland floods have made me aware that I should keep a supply of bottled water in the house. I have mentioned this to several people. Yet I have done nothing about it. Part of me can't bear to spend money buying water when it's so easily accessible from the tap -- usually.
However, this event, while trivial overall, has reminded me that I should do more about disaster preparedness. A search of the internet revealed numerous websites that can help us to prepare an emergency plan, some of which I've listed below. If you google 'emergency preparation' or '72 hour kit' you will find more; the general consensus is that each household should have a 72-hour store of water and non-perishable foodstuffs, along with items such as candles and a first-aid kit.
- 72 Hours.org
- Ready.gov
- Go Bags
- LDS 72 Hour food kit
- http://www.emd.wa.gov/preparedness/documents/piy_72_hour.pdf
Have you done anything to prepare in case of a natural disaster or disruption of services? What have you done?
Can you recommend any other websites on disaster preparedness?
6 comments:
We always have bottled water in the house, and rice, dried pasta, canned vegetables... We call it our "zombie supply".
We live very near to a nuclear plant, and with Fukushima in mind.. Better not think about it on this sunny day. It's so hard to imagine what people are going trough when a disaster like in Japan occurs.
Hi Kate;
Hope the water is back on...!
We do have a large supply of stock food (I call it just the pantry), but if needed it could carry us through for weeks (all 10 of us.)
Kimmie
mama to 8
one homemade and 7 adopted
My problem with preparing for 'disaster' is that you have to then keep on top of rotating the water and food. That part of it, at least, seems like such a waste of money.
As Sabine says, having enough in the pantry all the time is probably a good way to go.
I agree. I'm probably not very well prepared...okay, I know I'm not well prepared!
I haven't done anything organized, but we do seem to have bottled water in the house all the time. I don't know why. I think it grows here. I find that I am paralyzed by the thought of my house being so damaged that I wouldn't be able to get to my emergency kit. Then I think I should have a shed, but I don't have a shed, nor anywhere to put it, so I don't do anything. Sigh.
We lived throught the Japanese earthquake and were without water for longer than a week. Honestly, bottled water is NOT ENOUGH. We had botttled water on hand, furthermore we could buy bottled water from our supermarket and vending machines. (The supermarket wisely rationed the food selling so it didn't sell out immediately.)
The problem is with flushing the toilet, cooking, and cleaning your body. This takes TONS of water, far more than bottled water can supply. Luckily we could get water supplied by the city. We had to stand in line and trucks brought it in.
It was pretty horrible and has taught me not to waste water....
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