Be Prepared....

You never know when your newspaper is going to send you into a hurricane zone on short notice, so it helps to be prepared. Even before we’d decided exactly who was going on Friday afternoon, I was making a list of my useful emergency toys…
Sleeping bag, tent, flashlight, blanket …
Fortunately I already had all that stuff in my car.
Now sometimes my preparedness may seem a little odd to folks. I remember students in my campus youth group thinking it was strange that I carried Band-Aids in my wallet.
But on a weekly basis one of them would cut their hand open on a knife/can/music stand or something. They would need a Band-Aid and I’d try very hard not to say “I told you so.”
… first aid kit, tarp, wood saw, tool kit, hack saw blade, rope, small crampons…
All the woodsy equipment and training are holdovers from my scouting experiences and have come in useful during the hurricanes of Eastern North Carolina where I’m from.
While my family’s power was out after Fran, I had my old camping stove to cook on.
When I gave myself second-degree burns on said stove (I thought it had cooled off. You could actually see the imprint of the stove in the palm of my hand) I knew how to do first-aid.
… food, water, radio, compass, army shovel, another flashlight…
Heading down to the Mississippi Friday night, Megan, our reporter, asked if I had the equipment to change a busted tire. While we were in Laurel, the photographer from our host paper, the Laurel Leader-Call, got a flat.
… tire pump, full-sized spare, jumper cables, fire extinguisher, vehicle manual…
And not that my venerable, versatile, roomy, reliable, efficient and eager Toyota Camry would ever fail me, but what if something happened I couldn’t fix?
… St. Christopher medallion, Native American medicine bag, Japanese Shinto traffic-safety charm (I like to cover all the bases – be prepared!)…
But driving along the coast on my own one day from Slidell to Biloxi I saw devastation that no one can really prepare for. And that touches another of the basic scouting tenets.
I remember trying to stuff my new sleeping bag into its stuff sack during a camporee when I was about 11. Shoving the big, fluffy mummy bag, currently in my car trunk, into its tight bag that winter morning was like cramming a dachshund into a soda can and I was getting frustrated. My scoutmaster saw what was happening and came over to my tent.
“Well, John, if you were alone in the woods, that would be a problem,” said Mr. Farrell, “but there are a lot of other guys out here I bet would be willing to help.”
No matter how self sufficient we think we are, we aren’t. The most important things in an emergency can’t fit in a backpack or car trunk – our own good sense and the good will of others.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep that sleeping bag in your car.
It means you should keep an extra at your apartment – you never know when you can help out and equip someone else.
Maybe even a journalist.
…knife, file, can opener, screwdriver, awl, pliers, wire cutters (and that’s all on the same multi-tool)….