Three Day Survival

Finally did it. My friends in this building, not a tower, tell me I ought to have a survival kit. Where I live is a rainy place that is often regarded even though I love it, as being too rainy and wet. I live only a few blocks from the centre of this small city within a city that is emergency equipped, but still, I am told I need to have one of these emergency earthquake kits. We live on a Pacific fault. I used to smirk and nod my head with no intention of getting a kit, but pictures of a recent earthquake that killed many people far south of us, made me change my mind. One photograph of a woman sitting in the middle of a major capital city in Central America, she, distraught and weeping, made me do it. She was in her night wear and had nothing, not even her handbag with her. There was no emergency truck near by and hoards of other people crowded the area looking frightened. She was obviously a well-kept woman ordinarily, but disasters care nothing about money or power or position. It was time for me to become wiser about natural disasters and their effects. I learned. I now have a small cardboard box with a three day supply of water, food substitute and among a few other things, a shiny blanket that promises to retain 80 percent of my body heat. This cardboard box is going to be in the compartment under my ground level patio barbecue even though they recommend you put it near your bed. Who thinks of grabbing a cardboard box in an emergency, especially if you are at one end of your place and the other end where the box is, collapses. I hope this emergency box can withstand freezing temperatures. In the winter time, we do have some very cold days even in the moderate temperate zone in which I live. I may have to make an adjustment and put my emergency box inside when it's below zero. I see in the kit, there are packages of water and food cakes that are supposed to keep me going for three days. They look pretty small. I am going to add to this kit and put some first aid supplies in, an extra blanket and sox, maybe a flashlight plus my meds. When there is a disaster and I can, I will naturally go for my purse. It's got my life in it: access to my financials, all of my personal health and ID records as well as a copy of my passport: things that make me a person in the eyes of the law. I do this regardless of advice that I should never carry such in my bag. Okay, you can travel around with a twenty and your driver's license only, but I am going to carry around what I need, not what you say I should, in view of  crime situations that might occur in less than one percent of the population. Advice! We get too much of that. So here I am, purse near, emergency kit under the patio barbecue, and I, realistically or not, prepared for the worst. Hoping it doesn't happen!