The Prepared Home

What do we need to prepare for?

First of all we need to do a risk assessment. In other words, we need to think about what things could actually go wrong. There are various questions that need to be asked?

• Is your home near a river or at the bottom of a hill or other area that could flood easily?
• Is your electricity supply vulnerable e.g. could you suffer power cuts as a result of thunder storms or damage by others?
• Have you already experienced problems with water supply or could your water supply be spoilt by the actions of others e.g. tractor digging up a pipe or problems at the treatment plant?
• Can the drains in your area cope with heavy rain or does very severe rainfall lead to temporary flooding until the drains can deal with the excess?
• Do you have a business near you that could cause problems either as a fire risk or due to it being a possible pollution hazard?
• Could your own home catch fire?
• Do you live near a transport route of some kind either, rail, road or air as all of these occasionally have accidents that affect those nearby?

This list is not an exhaustive one but it is a useful starting point. Experience also suggests that accidents and bereavement will affect most households sooner or later. Then of course, there are national and international events such as the fuel crisis of 2000 and the rumours of war in various parts of the world.

I would be surprised if there was nothing on that list that could have, or even has affected you at some time or other. Some of these risks seem quite remote like we hear about house fires but so often they happen to the unlucky ones out of the thousands of homes in our community.

What none of us can know, is the number of near misses that there are every day, things that could turn out badly but somehow don't turn out to be as bad as they could have been. It was revealed after one railway accident caused by a train going through a red light that such incidents happened somewhere in the UK most days and if the average, was to be believed, sometimes 3 or 4 times a day. Somehow, none of those incidents had turned into major accidents but they could have done.

I believe things like that happen because of the grace of God and that sometimes He decides not to protect people and allows them to suffer from other people's mistakes. The scary thing is what would happen if for some reason that hand of protection was withdrawn and we had to take more of the consequences of our own mistakes.

Power cuts

This is something that most people have to deal with at some time or other. I put together a powerpoint presentation that gives ideas about how to deal with this situation and used it as a handout for a teaching session I did. It was also saved as a web page so that you can have a look it as well. I have set it so that it opens into a new window so you can come back to this window just by closing the presentation.

web version of powerpoint presentation on surviving power cuts