Should I stay or Should I go? Staying.

This is a discussion about Sheltering in Place.

Sheltering in Place is a concept that revolves around staying in your home during an emergency. Since your home is where you have all your stuff, it is the best place to be during a crisis. This is the most desired response to Natural or Man-made disasters. When Sheltering in place each family stays in their homes during the disaster.

To shelter in place you need to prepare to do so. This means having the materials to survive for 3 months or more. This includes, but is not limited too, food, water, commodities, fuel, and clothing. This does not mean boarding yourself in your home like it is some kind of Apocalyptic bunker, but providing a safe and comfortable place for your family.

Sheltering in place does not include mulishly staying put despite encroaching dangers like fire, flood, mudslides, looters, or disease. There are times when we must leave no matter how much we may believe we can tough it out.

Any personal and family preparedness plan should include plans to shelter in place and to leave because the nature of a disaster may require you to leave and to leave without your accumulated goods.

What do you need to shelter in Place? Well that all depends on yo0ur family. Make a list of what your family consumes in food and commodities (like toilet paper) in a months time. Now triple it. This is the basic requirement.

There are other things you might not think of like power or fuel. How are you going to prepare or cook your food without electricity or gas? Both of these could be cut off for a long period of time during an emergency, even if your immediate area is not directly effected.

Do you have enough drinking water for your entire family? Do you have enough water for food preparation and cleaning up? The likely hood of having potable water if the electricity if off is a factor on how much water you need to keep in your home.

Food should be food your family eats regularly. Most canned food has a shelf life of 5 years and frozen food is good until it's not frozen any more. Dehydrated food is hit or miss, try something before you invest in half a ton.

Commodities like toilet paper, bath soap, kitchen soap, other cleaning agents will all store in out of the way places and you never know when you won't be able to get more.

Remember that as your family changes your needs will also change, so update yearly at the very least.