Are You Ready?

One day, while moseying around the internet, I stumbled across the website for this magazine -- and I was hooked: Backwoods Home magazine.

Now, when it comes to the "back-to-the-country", simpler life-style info, I'm not that big a fan (the wife likes that stuff). However, I was really taken by the underlying philosophy of the magazine: that we live in an overly-complicated, technology dependent world and if there was ever a natural disaster, massive power outage, terrorist attack, or other disaster, most people would be in big trouble. Why? Just try getting through the day without something as simple and taken for granted as electricity.

Say the local power plant had a generator blow and it knocked your area off the grid on a day like today (low 90s and humid). It wouldn't take long before the effects off no air conditioning were felt -- not a problem, but a discomfort.

In my case, I'm on a well, so it wouldn't be long before the water was out. My stove and oven are both electric, so no way to cook apart from the propane in my grill or cooking over an open fire in the yard. Once it got dark, I'd only have candles. There'd be no TV, radio, internet. Cell phones would only be good for so long (I'm assuming the cell phone companies have some generator back-up but it would only last 8-10 hours max.)

So, you get the point. And that's the point of Backwoods Home magazine. Go to this link for an excellent, must-read editorial, in light of Hurrican Katrina, on why we should not sit around waiting for the gov't to rescue us and why we should be ready to take care of ourselves (what a concept!). A short excerpt:

Hurricane Katrina and the inability of Government at any level to respond in a timely, life-saving manner should set off alarm bells in our heads. If you want to protect yourself and your family, don’t follow the advice of the media or opportunistic politicians by voting for a new set of politicians and asking Government to spend billions of dollars on various projects. That won’t do it.

Take your life into your own hands and plan to take care of yourself and your family in an emergency situation. You, any only you, can become the timely power that will save your family when disaster strikes.