Yes, I forgot that part of emergency preparedness

I was so organized with our emergency preparedness when we lived in S. California. The main emergency that could happen was a severe earthquake that required you to leave your house indefinitely or stay without services. Of course fire was also a possibility.

Here in Atlanta I haven't quite got the hang of it yet. Tornadoes, falling trees, power outages, snow or ice shutting down the city. We have the basics - smoke and CO2 alarms, a supply of water, extra food for us and the dog, flashlights - and I thought we had battery powered radios. That is until I looked to see how old the batteries were (2010 expire date in one and no batteries in the other that is in the basement in case of a tornado). So I joined in the shopping for last minute ice storm supplies and now we have enough to get us through what would be a relatively short power outage if it happens. I'm also going to fill up some buckets and jugs with water for flushing toilets, minor washing up and dog drinking water in case the water supply pump is impacted. We have drinking water for us already.

I know this is nothing for folks living in regularly cold climates but it really hits this city hard when we get freezing rain. We already changed our travel plans to 1 1/2 days later than planned because in all likelihood we couldn't have gotten to the airport early Thursday morning much less dropped the dog off Wednesday evening. So now we are scheduled to go Friday afternoon but come back the same day as planned. Cost extra and we will see if we get to go at all. I didn't want to wait until the airline cancelled because then the seats would fill full up fast on later flights. If Friday is still a travel mess we will simply reschedule for later and see DS and DIL then.

I just saw that Shirley Goode has a great post about preparation on her blog today.