Emergency Preparedness: Have a Meal Plan

Because I follow the United States Geological Surveys (USGS) on Twitter, I get notices about every trembler in our state. Each Richter report I see is a nudge: Am I ready for a big earthquake? And if (when) the Big One hits, how will I feed my family? Would canned green beans and granola bars be a sufficient emergency food supply for my household?

A Mills-Peninsula Health Services (MPHS) health blog story offers tips and resources to help you prepare an emergency food supply for you and your family. Written by Deborah Tauscher, MPHS’s emergency preparedness coordinator, it is part of a year-long blog series, with new emergency preparedness recommendations each month.

Deborah writes that to be well prepared, you should stock enough food to last your family seven to 10 days. The same counts for emergency water (see last month’s article on storing an emergency water supply). Planning and stocking up in advance lets you to buy foods that you and your family like when they are on sale – avoiding the high cost of specialized emergency foods.

If you are interested in previously published emergency preparedness articles, you’ll find them here:

• Creating an emergency preparedness plan
• Stocking an emergency water supply

April’s topic will be “How to prepare an evacuation plan.” In the meantime, start updating your grocery shopping list!