Be Prepared Challenge (and some ranting)

  I’ve been meaning to post this for aaaages-but i’m here now.

  While the floods were happening up here, I spent a lot of time shaking my head in disbelief. Our town was cut off by floodwater for a week, and to me a week without supermarkets is nothing. We did nine days out bush at the property last year with no problems. The strangest thing is, it happens semi-regularly here, this is not a one-off, never-before-seen occurrence. It happens every couple of years. Surely people can feed themselves for a week from their cupboards, and the many supermarkets in town? Considering we have a dairy here as an added bonus? And the town is an old one, with many backyards having productive trees?

  Obviously not. People were freaking out everywhere, panic-buying at the supermarkets. There were food donations and food drops organised for smaller areas cut off from the main part of town. The local health food shop reported people coming in asking for breadmaking tips, and just how do you cook lentils? I spent a lot of time scratching my head, wondering what was going on. Surely people don’t go shopping every day as part of normal life? Surely they can dig up lots of food from the back of their cupboards, that may not be their favourite but will sustain them? AND WHAT WERE THEY DOING IN THE TWO WEEKS OR SO BEFOREHAND, WHEN WE KNEW WE WOULD GET FLOODED IN?!

Obviously, what many people do-rely on everyone else to fix things for them. Don’t worry about what’s coming, some person or agency will magically appear to solve all of your problems. Sadly, it usually happens-I would personally love to see more responses along the lines of ‘Sorry, take some responsibility for yourself-we have more important things to do’. Within reason of course, making someone eat out-of-date chickpeas from their bare cupboard is completely different to letting them die.

 

  Well, if you’re not one of those people (or are and realise it’s silly) Dixiebelle and Gavin are doing something far better than my ranting about it, and have provided a series on how to prepare yourselves for unexpected outcomes. I’m following some of it haphazardly (I don’t do well with structure), because while being a doomsday-ish person i’m well-prepared in food and medicines i’m not so prepared in some of the rest of the areas (although surely my recent involvement in starting up a Transition Initiative counts for this one?)

*Of course I am not referring to anyone who truly suffered during the floods. Duh.