It’s either severe storms, tornadoes, or severe ice storms, where I live.
The worst storm we went through was the ice storm 4? years ago. It caused a lot of damage and sounded like a war zone on the ridge behind us. We were without power that week for a total of 106 hours, not all at once here and there because they would just get the trees cleared one place and have to go clear them somewhere else.
Thankfully we have a generator big enough to power the refrigerator and a few other things and the fireplace is propane so that wasn’t an issue.
This property sits on one of the highest spots in the county and has excellent drainage, so water/flooding is never an issue. If we ever get flooded up on this hill there is no point in trying to go anywhere because the rest of the county would be underwater.
I never go to bed at night without filling the (4) 16 gallon water tubs for the two horses. We are on County water out here, but the water has failed a few times in the past. The horses I came here with were all micro chipped, but have since passed.
My two current dogs are micro chipped and live in the house. One will go in the closet all by herself, the other one will sit on the bed and shiver with his tail between his legs so I tell him he’s on his own. There is no basement to this house, which is common in my area of Tennessee. The center closet is where I go.
Along with grabbing my medicines, cash and car keys I have a motorcycle helmet. Notice I said CASH. ATM cards won’t be of much help if your area’s power is lost
Something they mentioned on the weather channel the other day that I completely forgot about and I’m going to buy is a whistle.
By a whistle and hand it around your neck so they can find you.
Dig out those KN95 covid masks and put a few in the kit.
Hand sanitizer.
keep your cell phones and other devices fully charged.
Have a good sized flashlight at hand. I have two spotlights from Walmart, they were cheap.
I have a NOAA weather radio but never use it because it’s old. If I lose the tv, I livestream on my IPad
I am one of those people that could live off grid if I had to, so I don’t put as much panic into the possibility of losing my house as most people might. I don’t want to see that happen, but if the wind would level it, my first concern would be my horses and my dogs, I could live in the barn with the horses if I had to, at least until snow flies. I have more emergency medical stuff in the barn than I have in the house - assuming the barn survived.
The basic Emergency kit should be the same for everyone but how & where each person lives also needs to be considered.
I don’t need a canoe or a life raft but someone else might.
Also have a deep water well for the garden. Our community residential water well has a backup generator so we've never had to use the garden well for emergencies but it's good to have in case.
