When it rains...

You have heard the saying...when it rains, it pours. Maybe that is more of a term said in places where it rains much more often than southern California. In the 21 years I have lived here, I have only witnessed it "pouring" a couple of times. You know the kind… where the drops are big and closely spaced together and it seems more like a thick wall of water than individual drops.

People think that I experienced heavy rain while living in Seattle for 6 years. Not true. I experienced a LOT of rain because it fell with almost daily regularity, but rarely heavily. In Thailand, I got caught in a tropical rain storm that felt like I was standing in a waterfall. Now that’s a "downpour.”

The point of all this is to remind us of the power of water and what Mother Nature can do with it. Haiti, who experienced a devastating earthquake last January and recent outbreak of cholera, is soon to expect another swipe at their island home-- a hurricane. Nature takes no notice of the need for recovery because that is just how the natural world works.

So when we are preparing for emergencies, we usually think of preparing for a fire, or an earthquake, or (actually possible here) a flood, we think of a single disaster. The reality is that, as our Haitian neighbors are experiencing, we could be hit with a series of disasters. Southern California has already experienced that in the form of mudslides which follow wildfires. It’s sad to read about these incidents but since they are in relatively small and/isolated areas, we tend to forget about them quickly, and relinquish them to “somewhere else.”

So when putting together your Emergency Preparedness kits, try to envision the variety of disasters that could happen, at different times of the year and possibly together. No disaster is fun, but surviving doesn't have to feel like you are in a constant downpour. Just make sure you start getting ready now.