Don’t think you need an emergency kit? Think again, say families who needed one.
Flashlights, jugs of bottled water, a first aid kit, and ready-to-eat meal packs line the Jones’ living room floor. The family isn’t going camping—they’re preparing for disaster by putting together a “go bag.”
Martin and Caroline Jones never used to worry about natural disasters in their North Georgia town of Jasper, but after the hurricanes, tornadoes, and ice storms of 2020, they don’t want to leave anything to chance for their two children.
Preparing in advance with a disaster-ready kit has helped families nationwide through extreme and abnormal weather events, which experts warn are on the rise.
“Having a personal preparedness plan increases your chances of staying safe,” according to a training program from the Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness. This proved true for the Foster family from Middle Georgia.
Phone alerts let Rosemary and Hayden Foster know that bad weather was on the way. Rosemary’s 97-year-old mother, Lucille Burriss shares their mobile home, and their 2-year-old granddaughter, Saylor was staying with them that day. Their son Shane had come over to check on them. With an EF-3 tornado on the way, all four took shelter in their safe place, Go Bags nearby.
“It came fast,” said Shane Foster. “It was raining harder and the wind picked up. Stuff started hitting the house. There was a loud crash, then the whole home shook. In minutes it was all over.” Due to the damage the home had sustained, what they had in their Go Bags was all they could take with them.
The Fosters credited the disaster-preparedness help they received as Jehovah’s Witnesses, both through periodic reminders at their congregation meetings and from tips for putting together go bags on the organization’s website, www. jw.org.
“Life is precious, so we encourage all to heed the Bible’s advice to take practical steps to protect ourselves from danger,” said Robert Hendriks III, spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States.
Go bags also have proven useful in the opposite circumstances as “stay bags.”
When February’s Winter Storm Uri left millions of Texans without heat, electricity, and running water, many go bags there saw their first-ever use outside of hurricane season.
Houston residents Dan and Rhiannon Muey’s advance preparation enabled them to shelter in place for days, even as many in their area braved treacherous road conditions to scour barren store shelves for supplies.
“Our hurricane ‘go bags’ became our winter storm ‘stay bags,’ but we were so glad we had them,” said Dan. “Instead of waiting in lines for hours to get basics like drinking water, we already had what we needed.”
The Gauthier family regularly sit down to review and replenish the family’s emergency supplies. Their efforts paid off last August when Hurricane Laura hit them in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
“Having our go bags allowed us to act faster,” said father-of-two Matthew. “If we had to start from scratch it would’ve slowed us down a lot.”
Disaster-preparedness suggestions and tips for putting together a go bag are available from FEMA at ready.gov and from Jehovah’s Witnesses at https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/awake-no5-2017-october/disaster-steps-that-cansave-lives/.
– Contributed