Being Prepared – Lessons from Haiti

My thinking on this post came from today when I read a comment in a St. Louis paper about the relief efforts in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. I have a number of scans on subjects I’m interested in, and this one popped up.

The guy making the comment, told how he thought the U.S. effort was too little, too late, and was run in an antiquated manner. I happen to think that the U.S, and all the other countries involved, as well as the incredible efforts of private citizens and charitable organizations from around the world are doing an astounding job.

If you consider the massive damage to buildings, roads, communications, and general society, it would be hard to conceive that there would not be great difficulty getting things underway and flowing smoothly. To add to the difficulty, the government there was not one fostering free enterprise, and it inhibited the country from prospering as many of the neighboring countries. Structures were not built as strongly as they should have been, and this has been costly to the loss of thousands of lives, perhaps unnecessarily. Is this the fault of the rest of the world? No it is not.

Each country has to do what it can to build safely and to encourage a prosperous society, which innovates and improves the lives of all. Of course as part of the human family we all try to help each other in times of need, like what is now going on in Haiti. We feel compassion on those who have been killed in the quake, and an ongoing sorrow for those who now suffer and die as a result of the disruption of the communities and nation.

This should give us all reason to pause and to think, what if this happened where I live? What would I do? How would my family survive? We have been urged throughout our lives by religious leaders, by wise parents and civic leaders to prepare ourselves. Do we really take preparedness seriously? Do we tell ourselves we have enough, we’ll be alright? Do we say, I have my 72 hour kit and that’s good enough?

There has been some criticism that 5 or more days passed without much of any relief. Knowing that, how do you feel about your 72 hour kit, is it good enough? At some point we need to get serious about survival, about personal and family preparedness, it could save the lives of our families.

Each of us needs to know, to be trained in survival skills, wilderness training. We need to know how to do the basic things that sustain life. Shelter, Fire, Water, Food, First Aid, Rescue. Just because we live in the city doesn’t mean we can do without knowing these things. We should teach these skills to our families, we should practice

Part of our mission at Wilderness Innovation is stated in our motto:  “Simplifying Survival.”  We are teaching the skills to survive, we have in our schedule many items to help in becoming self-sufficient, and prepared.

Now here is a Quick-Tip: Keep some camping gear in sturdy Rubbermaid type containers in a place near your cars. I keep non-perishable food items in these containers as well as stoves, fuel, cooking accessories, rope, shelter, water, etc. In case of an evacuation, in just a few minutes we can load these items as well as our 72 hour kits in a vehicle and be on our way. It can also be valuable to have these survival items outside the house in a separate structure, so if the house becomes dangerous to enter, there are some items still available.

Well that’s my thoughts on the matter. Till next time – Perry Peacock