Emergency preparedness is crucial if you live in disaster-prone areas. It is also essential to surviving during difficult life situations, such as economic crisis, loss of jobs, political instability, and more.
However, most people have misconceptions about emergency preparedness and make grave mistakes during their emergency preparedness planning. They either invest too much in DIY long term food storage and forget other aspects of emergency preparedness or vice versa.
In any case, making critical mistakes during emergency planning can make or break your survival during emergencies.
In this blog post, let's look at some mistakes you shouldn't make when planning for emergency survival.
Lack of Emergency Plan
Even when most people know they live in a disaster-prone area, they don't have an emergency plan. Maybe it’s because daily life gets in the way, or it’s too daunting to confront what might be coming, but making an emergency plan is far less stressful than any emergency itself.
You might be worried that it’s too late, but if you start emergency prepping now, you can rest assured that you will have an emergency plan in place when SHTF.
Lack of Contingency Plan
It is not just about having an emergency plan, but it must be a multi-scenario plan. You must have multiple contingency plans to tackle different emergencies. For example, if you live in an area that experiences different types of natural disasters, your emergency plan must be able to tackle all the disaster situations in your region.
Forgetting to Update the Plan
Updating your emergency plan is important as time passes. However, most people don't update their plan and run into problems when the time comes to execute it. It is highly crucial to update your emergency preparedness plan as per your latest circumstances. For example, checking the food stored in Mylar bags for rotation.
Lack of Enough Food
You might think you have enough food stored, but are you sure about it? You certainly don't want to ration food during emergencies.
So, you must double check expiration dates and prioritize rotating and adding new food stock periodically. This way, you can always have sufficient food for your family to thrive under any circumstance.
Lack of Clean Water
Although most people store enough food, they forget to store clean water. So, while you are working on your food storage, make sure to work on storing clean water simultaneously. You can read our previous blog on ways to store clean water here.
Lack of Shelter-in-Place Supplies
It's not just food and water that you need daily. There are other necessities that play a vital role in our daily routines, such as toothpaste, toilet paper, soaps, and more. Do you have enough stock of these items if you were to need to shelter in place during an emergency?
Lack of First Aid Kit
Emergencies such as disasters will need first aid kits. Do you have enough first aid kit supplies for your family members and more to help neighbors or friends? If not, maybe you might want to start making a first aid kit.
Lack of Sanitation Kit
Do you think you will always find a bathroom during emergencies? Surely not! Hence, you must prepare a proper sanitation kit so that you can maintain good sanitation habits and prevent illnesses.
Lack of Communication and Light Device
Communication is critical to knowing the status of any emergency circumstance. However, the lack of the right communication and light device can make it difficult or even impossible to keep up with what’s going on around you.
So, you must have at least one communication device and light device. For example, you can have dynamo powered torch and radio to stay up to date with the latest situation during emergencies.
Lack of 72-hr Grab n Go Kits
Having a 72-hr Grab n Go kit is crucial! Most people who are already prepped don't consider getting a 72-hr kit because they already have what they need at home, but this kit is important for everyone— even for seasoned preppers.
If you are already practicing emergency preparedness, you might have your pantry, first aid kit, and shelter in place supplies fully stocked, but there is a chance that you will need to evacuate without enough time or space to grab everything you already have prepped at home. This is why you must have a 72-hr kit that is ready to go, so you can grab it out of your car or on the way out the door.
Bottom Line
Prepping without a real plan isn’t enough! You need to consider every circumstance and, in turn, every need you might have along the way.
You may have thought you were done preparing for emergencies, but you are probably making some of these mistakes already.
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