Emergency Kits & Plans for Kids

Are You Prepared for an Emergency?

This is a fabulous, well-worth-your-time read on Parents.com.  The post was written by Wendy Sue Swanson, a pediatrician mother who describes her emergency kits and plans for her kids.  She has a lot of great ideas.

I thought her idea of writing a letter to her son (to keep on file at his school in case of an emergency), was particularly smart.  She included it on page three of the article.

Here is the direct link:  http://www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/advice/emergency-preparedness/


More on kids & preparedness:
School Preparedness - http://iprepared.blogspot.com/2009/01/school-preparedness.html
Family Home Evening on Emergency Preparedness - http://iprepared.blogspot.com/2009/09/family-home-evening-earthquake-scenario.html

Iron Chef: Food-Storage Style

Do you ever buy a food storage item for your family only to find out that it is a complete "miss" and no one will even touch it?  This happened to me this year.  I purchased 5 boxes of Kix cereal on a great sale.  Those boxes have been sitting down on our cereal shelf for almost a year now.  I brought a box upstairs in hopes that someone would open it and give it a try.  I even rearranged my cereal shelves so that all of the boxes of Kix were highly visible right at the front.  But no bites (literally)!

So, for a recent Family Home Evening I decided to ensure that the Kix cereal got used.  I was in charge of the activity and planned an Iron Chef Competition:  Food-Storage Style!

If you've never seen an Iron Chef competition, the gist is that two teams (chefs) are given a "secret" (previously unknown) ingredient and then have one hour to create unique foods which are then judged.  The winning team is determined by which receives the most total points in three categories:  plating, originality, and taste.  Each judge can award up to 5 points for plating and originality and 10 points for taste, for a total of 20 points which are then added together.

We broadened the time limit and then talked our good-sport neighbors, who I'm pretty sure thought we were crazy, into being our judges.  Of course, our secret ingredient was Kix cereal.  Dad's team created a Kix-Brownie by replacing most of the flour with crushed Kix. They dusted them with powdered sugar and drizzled with a chocolate sauce. My team created a chilled peach pie with a Kix cobbler-crust. We added a sprinkle of toasted crumbled crust on top. Sorry, I forgot to take pictures.

After we created our concoctions, we delivered the treats and judging slips.  We sampled each-other's dishes while waiting for the results.  After a few minutes, our neighbors returned the totaled judging sheets.  The winner?  Chilled Peach Pie!  Who knew that the neighbor-dad didn't like brownies?  His super-low ratings for the brownies threw the game to the peach pie by just 3 points.

Unfortunately we only used one box instead of all four like I hoped.  So, I'll likely donate the remaining boxes to the food bank.   Even if you only use a bit of your unused storage, having an Iron Chef competition is a fun way to help you rotate through some of your own less-used food storage items. 

I'd love to hear about your competition if you try it!

school preparedness

Last Wednesday, I wrote about a stop-and-think experience that I had in some extreme winter weather. You can read the post here. Because of terrible winter storm conditions, parents were not able to pick up their children from a local elementary school. Even families that lived adjacent to the school were unable to get their children because the blowing snow had reduced the visibility to nothing. A lot of children and teachers ended up spending the night at the school. The children were mostly comfortable because the school had food, electricity and communication. Everyone was fine and I'm sure it was the adventure of a lifetime.

There are several situations that could strand my kids at school. Our schools won't release the students in any situation unless an authorized individual picks them up and signs them out. I realize that this policy ultimately protects my children. But it also means that my kids could be stuck at school until I can get to them. In some possible emergencies, they could be waiting outside the school in bad weather until I can sign them out.

So, what would I want my kids to have if they were ever in a situation like this? Obviously, I can't expect my kids to carry a huge preparedness kit around with them everywhere. But each child already has a backpack that they usually have with them. Sometimes those backpacks are already pretty full. So in the past, I have filled a small plastic ziplock bag with a few items. Usually there are a few empty side pockets available to stash a little bag.

Here are some things that you could fit into a small ziplock bag:

Reflective blanket

Handwarmers

Water pouches

Granola bars

Family picture (with emergency contact numbers on the back)

Bandaids

Sunscreen

Rain poncho

Tissues

Wet wipes

If more space is available:

Emergency cell phone

Umbrella

Spare socks/hat

Gloves

A lot of the schools in our area already have small emergency kits for each student stored in each classroom. It's worth it to become familiar with the safety precautions and preparedness preparations at your children's schools.