Recommended Length of Preparation Periods

Many local and federal relief agencies suggest that you should have preparations in place to be self-sufficient for a period of 72 hours. Although 72 hours worth of preparations is certainly much better than none at all, there are circumstances that would require you to be self-sufficient for a much longer period of time. The following list, although not all inclusive by any means, illustrates some situations where long term preparations would be required to adequately protect you and your family.

Avian Flu Pandemic

For years now the world has stood poised for the next global flu pandemic. The Avian Flu is widely accepted as the most likely threat of this type. Once the virus has mutated in such a way that human-to-human transfer is possible, it will be hard to contain. Consider how a global flu pandemic, that kills millions of people, would affect our everyday life. The economy in hard hit areas would grind to a halt as people were afraid to leave their homes for fear of coming in contact with an infected person. You would however, still have to leave your home to acquire your essential supplies of food, medicine, fuel etc., unless you planned ahead and had supplies on hand. Being able to live comfortably in your own home for a period of weeks if needed until the danger had passed would significantly reduce your chance of becoming infected.

Recommended Preparedness Period: Four weeks minimum but three months would be more practical. Again the period of time you would need to be self-sufficient would depend on the time of year and the way governments or the World Health Organization reacted to the outbreak. If they decided to quarantine entire cities, then you would have to remain secluded for a long time until the disease had run it's course or a vaccine were made available. The economy and your means of earning a living could be at a standstill for quite a while. Several weeks of supplies could come in very handy.

Terrorist Attack

Terrorist attacks can take many forms. It could be a devastating one-time assault such as Nine-Eleven or a series of smaller disruptive attacks on important infrastructures. Recovering essential services after a single attack could only take a matter of days. A sustained series of smaller attacks could be a different story. Repeated assaults on our power infrastructure for example could leave you with sporadic power or completely without electricity for a period of weeks or months. In such a scenario, your workplace/school would likely be idle. Your local gas station could not pump gas for your car and grocery stores would not be able to restock or operate dependably. The computers which control many of our day to day activities such as communication, traffic control, ATMs etc., would all be useless without power. Until the situation was resolved, you could be in for a lengthy period of uncertainty.

Recommended Preparedness Period: Four weeks worth of basic supplies at the very least. Six months would be more practical depending on the scope, time of year and your location.

Natural Disasters

Natural disasters have been a part of life on this planet for as long as mankind has existed. The problem is that in recent history, we have become complacent. We believe that no matter what happens, a government or relief agency will be there immediately to supply us with the necessities of life. How true was that when hurricane Katrina hit? How well did that strategy work after the tsunami of 2004 and how well did it work just recently in Burma? The simple fact is that natural disasters will keep happening when and where they please. Its up to us to make sure that when it happens where we live, that we have made the necessary preparations to supply our needs and the needs of our family for an extended period of time.

Recommended Preparedness Period: Depending upon the nature, scope and severity of the disaster, you could find yourself without essential services for a period of days, weeks or months.

Bio-Terrorism and Bio-hazardous Accidents:

A biohazard is an infectious agent such as bacteria, fungi or viruses, that are dangerous to the health of humans or other animals either by infecting them or by damaging the environment they depend on. Biohazards can be naturally occurring or be the result of modern biotechnology. Biohazards entering the general population, as we saw with the SARS outbreak in Canada, can be a real cause for concern. Viruses like SARS or Smallpox which initially have little or no visible signs of infection, can spread quickly and be difficult to contain. Biohazards can enter the population either by accident, as a naturally occurring pathogen or they can be released intentionally as a terrorist act or bio-weapon. The transmission of bio-infectious agents from one person to another can occur in different ways depending on which pathogen it is. Fungi such as Anthrax spread by spores, while viruses may require some exchange of bodily fluid. Being able to remove yourself from sources of potential infection, until the situation can be resolved, would greatly increase the likely hood that you would not be infected. Having enough preparations in place so you could be self-sufficient in your own home would be a huge advantage. In the case of a major accident or bio-terrorism attack, local economies would be greatly impacted and your place of employment may be shut down as well. By being prepared to be self-sufficient, you would also be preparing for the financial impact as well.

Recommended Preparedness Period: Depending on how the biohazard entered the population, you may need to be self-sufficient for a period of months. If it was caused by an accident, it could be contained quickly and the danger could be over in a matter of days. If the situation was caused intentionally as a terrorist assault, it could be much longer. Multiple insertion points, intentionally infecting areas where large numbers of people congregate or other dubious tactics used by the terrorists could make this a very difficult crisis to gain control over. Several months or over a year of preparations would not be out of the question.

Severe Weather

Winter storms, tornados, hurricanes, cyclones and other extreme weather phenomena have been daily subjects in the news. With global warming and climate change, these extreme weather patterns are almost certainly going to become part of our lives for some time to come. They may even become worse as some are predicting. Preparedness for these kinds of events is more important now than it ever was. The weather seems harder to predict now so if we wait for a serious event before making preparations, we may find that we are too late. It is much safer to have your preparations in place before a major event occurs. When it does happen, you will be safely tucked away and not out trying to acquire the essentials you need for daily living.

Recommended Preparedness Period:  Severe storms and other extreme weather rarely last a long time. A weeks worth of supplies which allow you to stay safely indoors would be enough for the majority of situations. Having said that, you couldn't go wrong by having enough supplies for two weeks or even better, for one month to make sure that you were adequately prepared. Consider what would happen if extended family or visitors were stranded at your house by a freak storm or other severe weather incident. It would come in very handy to have a few extra supplies around so you wouldn't have to ration them.

Nuclear Incident

A Nuclear Incident could include anything from an accident at a near by reactor, to terrorists exploding a small thermo-nuclear device in a crowded city all the way up to a limited nuclear exchange with another country. Events of this nature are obviously at the most serious end of the preparedness scale. The likelihood of something this serious happening is thankfully a lot smaller than the other events we have talked about but if you want your disaster preparedness to be complete, it needs to be considered. In any nuclear incident, there is going to be little or no warning. The importance of being prepared ahead of time is probably more important with this scenario than with any of the others. Evacuation preparations have to be in place to allow you to leave a dangerous area in a moments notice with everything you'll need to survive for a period of days or weeks. If evacuation is impossible, having enough preparations in place to allow you to be totally self-sufficient in your own home until you could leave safely, could very well make the difference between life and death in such a situation.

Recommended Preparation Period: Because the list of possible scenarios contains some things which are much more serious and far reaching than others, there is no one recommended period of preparedness. In this situation, more is better. Society as we know it could be disrupted for a very long time in the most serious cases. One years worth of self-sufficiency supplies would not be out of the question. Of course any amount of planning is still better than none and would give you a huge advantage over those who made no preparations at all. Preparing for lesser amounts of time would still give you protection against some of the less serious Nuclear Incidents.