To start today’s blog, let me apologize that Steve is not available, but no worries, I am going to take a stab at this blogging thing. First off, let me introduce myself. I am the wife of an emergency manager and to be honest I rely on Steve to do all the planning and preparing when it comes to our family. I never see concerns in the future, always look at the cup half full and to be honest often see no need to prepare. Well let me get started with an Ahha moment I had a few days ago……
I was driving home from a friend’s house about 2.5 hours from home on an extremely hot day. The windows were down, the tunes were on and Trixie (my small white dog) and I were enjoying the summer drive. Now let’s back track a bit, during the winter I always have an emergency kit in the back of the car. The kit has a sleeping bag, canned food, a candle, flares, mitts, hat and activity book with pencil. However, as soon as the warm weather appears, I promptly remove the kit to storage and don’t replace it with a warm weather version.
Now back to the story. During my drive home, which included many backroads with spectacular views, my car began to make the most interesting sounds followed by a refusal to proceed. Once I pulled over, I made the necessary call to CAA and luckily they arrived in good time. Within the hour Trixie and I were on our way. The waiting time in the sun and heat on the side of a country road with no shelter from the sun, did however cause me to think about some “what ifs” and how I might have managed them.
The heat in the car became too extreme to remain sitting in it for too long, but both Trixie and I also needed to be protected from the sun’s rays. I was happy to remember that I had an umbrella in the car that would be a good sun barrier, but sunscreen would also have been helpful. Water, though warm, would have also been appreciated even during the reasonable wait we did have. What if the wait had been much longer? Granted, the summer heat would always make having food kept in the car difficult but grabbing a piece of fruit as I walk out the door would be a good habit to get into in the future. So, after all this thinking and yes planning, I created the following summer emergency kit to keep in my car as well as implementing the grab a fruit habit.
4 bottles of water
Umbrella (useful for sun and rain)
Sunscreen
Sun hat
Small bag of dog food
Small dish for dog water
Dog leash
Activity book and pen
Enjoy all your warm weather activities and “prepare” to have fun 😊
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