Hunker down folks, Armageddon is coming! Howling hurricanes, terrible tornados, devastating earthquakes, not to mention the collapse of civilization if the Democrats (or Republicans, depending on your political bent) win the next election. Meanwhile, you are just trying to get through to your next paycheck, worrying about how fast the mileage is stacking up on the minivan, and trying to figure out where your adorable toddler learned THAT word, and how to get him to stop using it.
Still, you know that part of being a good parent and spouse is ensuring that if anything bad should happen, you and your family have the gear, supplies, and skills to get through it until things get back to at least semi-normal, be that tomorrow, next week, next month, or next election.
The best time to practice survival skills is not when the fire department is banging on your door telling you to be out in five minutes, or huddled in the rain in an open field trying to erect a tent and get the stove going, with chaos all around. If a dire scenario comes to pass, you want your actions to be instinctive and well rehearsed, not you trying to remember how the stinking hose connects to the fuel canister. On the other hand, if all you talk about is how to act in a disaster, the little ones might get nightmares and your teenagers will have aching eyeballs from all the time they spend rolling them. So the trick is to make it fun, and practice often enough that the skills will be developed, but not so often that it seems an obsession. And then the question arises of exactly what you should be practicing.
In my not so humble opinion, here are the skills you and your family should be competent in in case of disaster, along with a few thought starters on how you hone those skills in a non-threatening, dare we say fun even manner:
Evacuation
You have five minutes to get out of your home. What will you take, where will you take it, and how long until you and your family are all in the car, ready to leave? There are lots of games and activities that could revolve around evacuating. You can assign each member of the household one or more objects to snag and head to the car with. You could make this a race, or just try to beat the previous best time for the family. To mix it up, discuss what get prioritized, and then vary the evacuation time. For example, if there is a pretend brush fire bearing down on the house, 30 seconds might be all the time to allot, while an impending flood gets several minutes, but more gear needs to be fetched and packed in that time slot. Does everyone have a bag to grab, or will someone be grabbing the main family 72 hour kit while another runs for water, another for sleeping bags, etc…? A discussion before the drill might revolve around prioritizing what gets grabbed first, what gets left behind in a hurry but packed if more time is available, and what is important to each member of the family. This might mean that little Johnny’s Hot Wheels collection is at least considered for evacuation, but the alternative might be Johnny throwing a tantrum at the moment when the family is scrambling into the car for real.
Rallying
Having small children would make playing this one tough, but if your kids are old enough to be trusted on their own, this is a great role playing exercise. Part of every family’s emergency plan should be to have a rally point or two where everyone meets in the event of a disaster. Your house is obvious, but if the house is evacuated, would everyone know where to go and meet up at? So drop the (older) kids off at their school, or the mall, and give them X amount of time to get to the rally spot. Munchies for the successful ones, perhaps? Or a more realistic timetable if you can see that getting from there to here in the prearranged time turns out to be problematic. Part of the fun might be figuring out where the rally point should be.
Roughing it
Not everyone shares my personal fondness for spending time in the outdoors, sleeping on the ground under nylon, cooking up gourmet dehydrated feasts. If I had a quarter for every time I’ve heard the line “My idea of roughing it is a hotel without room service”, well, I wouldn’t be rich, but I could do several loads of coin-op laundry. That’s cool, to each their own. But in the event of a true disaster, the Hilton may not be taking reservations. So even if you hate camping out, being reasonably skilled in it is a prudent idea. And your kids, unless they are surly teens who grew up going to the Holiday Inn, will love it.
Many of you have nice trailers or motor homes that make great emergency shelters, provided you keep them prepped, supplied, and ready to go on a few minutes warning. But be it in a trailer or under a plastic tarp, camping out and doing it comfortably is not just a way to have family fun, it’s a real and important life skill. Practicing for a disaster and loading up the ol’ SUV for a night up the canyon can be different experiences, however. You are not likely to have a cooler full of burgers and cold beverages at your command, nor a full complement of folding chairs to relax in. You can compensate by having your first few expeditions out in the back yard. Just as would happen in an emergency situation, try camping using only the gear in your 72-hour kit, maybe supplemented by more substantial food. If something does not work, or you find you never need an item, edit it out. Conversely, if the need for an item not in your kit keeps cropping up, well, the opposite applies.
Urban camping may always be a necessary evil to you, or you may find yourself wandering further afield, and wanting to try new food dishes, new activities, and new adventures all around. But even if practice does not make perfect, it can make reasonably competent. And remember to spread the adventure around. Once the kids are of a reasonable age, they can help set up camp, help prepare food, and clean up the area. In a true emergency, every hand will be needed; you might as well get them-and you-used to it. You may even discover that you actually enjoy being in the outdoors, and while a shakedown cruise or two on the lawn is not bad, there is no rule that says you have to stay home. Come to think of it, maybe combining an evacuation drill with a night out (splurge for decidedly non emergency s-mores) sounds like a not unpleasant way to spend a family weekend, taking another step towards being ready should a more disagreeable scenario come your way.
I’m sure you could add some more fun ways to practice. Scavenger hunts, team-based competitions if there are enough of you, fishing derbies without a store-bought rod or reel? Use your imagination.
