Our plan. You know, the one that doesn't exist yet.

The sad things that have happened in Japan have made me a bit nervous.  We don't have an emergency plan for anything small, much less something massive.

Our SoCal plan was easy.  Our SoCal apartment was perfectly situated: close to the beach but not close enough for tsunamis; close to the mountains but not close enough for brush fires and mudslides; close to downtown but not close enough to die if it was bombed (we were far enough away and we also had a natural mountain barrier).  So basically all we had to worry about was earthquakes.

T worked from home and I worked 1/2 mile away just over the freeway.  Even if the bridge over the freeway was destroyed I could have walked home in a max of 20 minutes.  We had a big grocery store parking lot around the block to meet at if our apartment was destroyed.  T had a relative who lived a bit away if we needed to stay somewhere other than our apartment.  We would call / email my parents to tell them we were safe and then count on them to spread the word to everyone else.  We had a 72 hour kit (thanks, Dad for giving me a lot of this stuff) at the apartment and four gallons of drinking water.  We also had a bunch of preparedness stuff (tools, first aid kit, flashlight, blanket, a case of water) in the trunk of the car.

Our situation isn't quite that good here in D.C.  I don't know what kind of natural disasters we are at risk for here.  Oh, right, I know one.  Blizzards.  Yesterday on the radio we heard flash flood warnings and a tornado warning for the next county over.  Who knew we had tornadoes out here?!  We are less than 5 miles away from both the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol.  In the event of an attack we aren't just in the fall out zone, we are in the direct hit zone. 

T works about 5 miles and a river away from our apartment.  I drive him to and from work so we don't know how he would get home in the event of a disaster.  Should I try to pick him up?  What if the bridges aren't usable? Should T swim across the (rather large) river then walk the rest of the way?  What if it is winter?  How long would it take him to get home?  Where would we meet if the apartment was destroyed?

Our 72 hour kit is at the apartment but we haven't replenished the water supply yet.  Should T have a 72 hour kit at work?  I'm thinking that in addition to our basic 72 hour kit we should make a beefier 72 hour kit based on this one. We do still have all that preparedness stuff in the trunk of the car.  And we still plan to call / email my parents with any emergency news and count on them to spread the word.  So I guess we kinda have a plan.  It's just not up to par yet.

I promise I'm not trying to be an alarmist, but my parents have definitely taught me to be prepared.  I just know it would be easier to handle an emergency situation if T and I already had a plan and had the things we needed to execute the plan.  It's better to be over prepared than under prepared in any situation.  I think I know what our next few FHEs are going to be about...

What's your emergency plan?