{I took this picture over the winter, during the wee hours of the morning, while doing some quiet knitting (with Puffin yarn from Quince & Co.), drinking our favorite tea (a blend of coconut and vanilla roobios from Mountain Rose Herbs), and enjoying the cande light (beeswax candles are my absolute favorite, this one came from our local friends at Humble Bee Honey.) The candle, by the way, was placed on a larger plate to catch the dripping wax, after this picture was taken.}

When the coronavirus first started showing up in the US, we started preparing much as we do when we have a storm in the forecast. Where we live, anytime there is a wind storm, rain storm, or snow storm we prepare for the possibility that the electricity could go out. Though most of the time the power outages don’t last for long periods of time, we have had storms that brought broader power outages in the community and our electricity was out for many days. (I think five days was the record so far.) So we always prepare as if that’s a possibility when a storm is on the way. We’ve also had floods along the river, landslides in these mountains, and trees come down in storms and block the road.

Each time we’ve encountered one of those situations, it’s taught us to be more prepared. We make sure we have plenty of water stored, for starters. We also make sure we have extra food, and necessities. We run around washing loads of laundry in case the power goes out, catching up on all the dishes (we don’t have running water at our place without power, our water pump relies on electricity), and bringing in extra firewood. Jeff makes sure the propane tanks are full so we can cook meals on our camp stove, and light the lanterns.

We prepare as best we can, and then we see. Sometimes what the forecast predicted doesn’t come to pass, there’s hardly a blip in the weather, and all the work we did wasn’t needed. But other times the storm is a big one and every preparation we did made for a smoother experience while we weathered the storm. Each and every time we learn ways to better prepare for the next storm. Regardless of the weather outcome, we’re always glad for everything we did to prepare. As we wondered how bad the pandemic was going to get, and what things would look like in this area and others, I thought of it a bit as a whirlwind of a storm. We did many of the same things we’d normally do for storm prep, and felt better for doing them, whether the storm ended up being quite as big and devastating as predicted, or not.

What you do to prepare for storms will be unique to your situation and where you live. There are hurricanes where my mom lives and shelves in grocery stores get empty in no time, so part of her storm prep is to stock up on supplies needed ahead of time. I have friends who typically go to the grocery store daily after work, picking up things for dinner that night. It was quite the change for them when the lockdown began, as many people were suddenly aiming to do their grocery shopping once per week or even once every other week. I wondered how easy it was for the majority of people to go two weeks between visits to the grocery store. For the majority, I’d say not that easy.

There are certain religions that have storing food and basic supplies as part of their religious doctrine. (Mormons, and Latter-day Saints come to mind, any others you know of? I’d guess Amish communities as well, storing food is a way of life for them, but I don’t know what their religion says about that in particular so don’t quote me on anything.) If you’ve wanted to put some extra food away, but have found it financially challenging to do so, dried beans are always a great option. If you buy some each time you go grocery shopping, it only adds a few dollars to the total, but over time will add some food to your pantry. It’s a place to start, anyway.

Years ago a friend and I went to a talk on disaster preparedness, particularly earthquake preparedness since they were saying Oregon was due for a large one. One thing that stood out in my memory was being told that you need to store a gallon of water per person per day. If I remember correctly, the gal recommended storing two weeks worth of water at the very minimum. For our family of three, that would be 42 gallons of water. That’s a lot of water! (I learned from experience that if you just fill gallon jars with purified well water that they can get funky over time. This article has some helpful tips about water storage. I’m also looking for other options for water storage besides chlorine, know any? Have any other water storage tips? Please share in the comments, I want to get a conversation going about all this.)

The woman teaching the preparedness class also told us that when there are natural disasters, roads can become impassible, rescue workers can be overworked and have much longer response times, and cell service can go out. (Speaking of that- do any you have landlines? I know they are not very common anymore, but we sure appreciate ours, especially when the electricity goes out and we can still make calls out on our corded phone.) Funny enough, yesterday we had a rain storm and as I went to finish writing this post, the power went out. Every time it does I’m amazed by how much we rely on electricity for every aspect of our lives. I’ll find myself reaching for the light switch or going to turn on the water, and then catching myself and saying “Oh yeah, the power’s out.”

Lately I’ve been thinking back to that class years ago, and thinking that it’s important for more of us to prepare ourselves for times when we don’t have access to all of the conveniences that we are used to. Water storage is a good place to start, and also to start thinking about storing some dried goods and foods so more of us can go two weeks without going to the grocery store, if need be, and not have that be a hardship. (I think this post by Wellness Mama is helpful, by the way, and thought some of you might find it helpful too.)

I’m not telling you any of this to scare you. I don’t think any of us really need any more fear right now. But my takeaway from going to that talk years ago was to prepare for things with a calm and level head, not with fear. Learning about things I could do actually made me feel less afraid, and that makes sense. When we educate ourselves about the things that scare us, it can turn something unknown into something better understood, and less feared. Otherwise fear can be so crippling it can paralyze us into inaction. We won’t do ourselves much good either if we are in a panicked frenzy trying to prepare for every possible scenario imaginable, our decision making is greatly diminished if stress overtakes our brain. It’s much more effective to take a deep breath, even if we feel afraid (especially if we feel afraid), and calmly take practical steps to care for ourselves and our families as best we can. We can do things to prepare for the storms of life, whether that be a natural disaster, a job loss, or illness. Hopefully we won’t experience the things we’ve prepared for, but if we do we will surely appreciate the steps we’ve taken ahead of time.

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I’d love to hear from you guys. Let’s get a conversation started in the comments. What kinds of storms do have where you live? What do you do to prepare? Do you store water on a regular basis? What conveniences have you found it hard to live without during the lockdown? In what ways would you have liked to have been more prepared before the stay at home orders during the pandemic? Would you find it easy to go two weeks without going to the grocery store (or any store) or would you find it challenging? Leave a comment and let us know.