Nature bats last

Here's an interesting article from the San Francisco Chronicle "When camping skills are needed to survive". It speaks to the "culture of emergency preparedness" which I have blogged about.

. . . anybody who spends time in the wilderness is always ready. All they need to do is pull out their backpack. In the different compartments and pockets will be everything they need . . . so they can leave at any moment. So if a natural disaster hits by surprise, like an earthquake, for instance, it can take about five minutes to react to it -- haul out the backpack and camping gear . . .

There is lots of info on the net about survival -- maybe even too much. For example, when I Google "Red Cross survival list" I get 1.4 million hits. But here is a basic supply list:

Water (four liters per person per day)
Food (for three days to a week)
first aid kit
camp stove or barbeque
package of important records (health numbers, list of medications, credit card numbers, relative's addresses, etc.etc)
cash for a week
phone
disaster kit containing things like an emergency preparedness manual; flashlight and extra batteries; radio; waterproof matches; candles, plastic garbage bags and zip-lock bags, waterless antibacterial hand soap, disinfectant, aluminum foil, can opener etc.

Most important, perhaps, would be just to THINK about this in advance, to make a plan.