Emergency Preparation

Are you prepared for an emergency? I definitely am not. I was for a little while following the earthquake in Mineral VA that shook my house even though it was 100 miles away. That was in 2010 and I still remember the day clearly.

I was sitting on the couch, enjoying the last bit of freedom before returning back to work. Kaylee, who was just over a month old, had just finished nursing and was happily in a milk-induced coma. Suddenly I had a feeling of being nauseous, dizzy, like the floor had suddenly gone soft underneath of me. I chalked it up to being exhausted, or the dizziness that sometimes overtook me while nursing (totally normal, due to hormonal surges).

Then the dog started whining and ran to the door. When I looked up, the walls in front of me swayed and shook. For a second, I was angry that the construction people in the next neighborhood would be blasting to severely it would make my house move, then I realized the house was still shaking.

I immediately grab my cell phone to call my mother, as my husband was at work. Instantly busy. I try again, the cell phone has signal, but the call cannot connect. I feel myself beginning to have a panic attack. What do I do in the event of an earthquake? All I can remember is "get in a closet, or a doorway, but which one is it?" and freeze. The dog barks at me and, literally, uses her body to force me to the door. We run outside.

After nothing happens, we go back in and the phones are still a mess. I text my mom and finally get through (VERY IMPORTANT!!! In an emergency, text, don't call) and hop on FB. Plastered on my wall was "Was that an earthquake? Did you feel that? Wtf was that?".

I can't get a hold of my husband, so I email my dad (who is at work) and ask him to call Scott and let him know we were okay. He was working 20 miles away from home and hadn't felt, or heard, a thing.

So back to the original story.

I quickly put together an emergency kit after that, but after a year of relative safety and security, it became disassembled and fell by the wayside. Now the horrible disaster in OK has me reminding how completely unprepared and sick I felt in the wake of the earthquake, and now it's time to build it back up.