SOME DISASTER-PREPAREDNESS THOUGHTS FROM READER KEN LIGHTCAP:

We just had major storms in the Kansas City Metro and we lost power for twenty-four hours beginning at 11:30 PM last Thursday night. Forty-eight hours later there were still over 20,000 homes without power. Here are three things I learned the hard way during this latest episode:

Grandchildren, if you are not vigilant, will find your emergency flashlights, play with them and leave them on even after they put them back in the drawer thus leaving you in the dark.

Consistency is your friend. Thursday night as I was falling asleep I realized that I had my cell phone in the bedroom and not out charging in the entry which I always do before going to bed. Just this once I said to myself, it will be OK. It wasn’t. The next day I fought a drained phone trying to find places to charge it (car, McDs etc.) I also didn’t check the weather before bed and because of that we lost our porch umbrella.

Keep a land line for phone and an old low-tech phone you can plug in when power goes out. The five station high-tech phone doesn’t work when there is no power but the old ATT princess phone still does fine. I refuse to give up my land line and even had ATT work it into my new U-Verse bundle.

Just some thoughts to add to the survival posts which have been very helpful to us as we live in severe storm country where we often lose power.

With Florida facing a hurricane threat, here are some hurricane pre-preparedness thoughts, and here’s a list of preparedness gear. Also, a roundup of more resources.