Easter Weekend at home and the guilt surfaced – it was time to tackle the chores to avoid. The garden shed. No surprise, it proved almost impossible to enter with rusting garden tools, paint cans, old toys and the earthquake emergency water and kit. This was at least partially the object of the exercise – I imagined it was time to review and perhaps refresh the water.
It sure was. The water was dated February 2005! Here I had been congratulating myself on how well prepared I was. Well, I was (kind of) back in 2005. So the kit (plastic box) revealed a veritable time capsule of what I must have thought would have been useful six years ago – clearly before we knew about the reality of real earthquakes!
There to sustain our family then comprising two adults, and three children aged 17, 15 and 12 was the following:
- 4 packs Yummy oriental noodle soup (yuck) and why four when we probably had five large teenagers at home?
- 1 can spaghetti – who would that be for?
- 2 cans tuna and 1 can sardine – latter would have been interesting as doubt the kids had ever had sardines
- 4 packets 2 min noodles
- powdered milk
- 2 packets Maggi soup
- 1 packet of muesli bars
That’s all going in the rubbish I’m afraid – just a bit over their use by dates! More sensibly – most of which can be retained:
- can opener
- torch and batteries – all sealed up but the batteries may be questionable after this time
- first aid kit but no sign of antiseptic or panadol
- old candles and matches
- 1 yellowed (v cheap?) toilet roll
- wet wipes – probably dried up?
The husband commented that the plastic containers had all held up well given the rat droppings – woops I just thought it was garden dirt.
Revamping the kit, means re-doing the water supplies including washing off the ‘dirt’ from the exterior! And now I’m thinking:
- hand sanitiser
- chemical loo – got to check out (husband points out that digging a long drop in our clay section is not a goer)
- small portable stove (bbq not sufficient to rely on)
- move ‘other’ quake supplies sitting in kitchen drawer, eg dynamo radio/torch to quake box
- lamp (having seen the brother and sister in law relying on candles for weeks – not attractive)
- more toilet paper!
- small bottle bleach.
As for food, I’m just not convinced that I need to have a separate stock. I like to imagine that even with the ‘big one’ we could access the many cans in the pantry even amongst the glass etc.
It’s so hard to plan for something that could happen in five minutes or five days or five years or 25 years. But Christchurch was real, so it’s dumb not to think about it. If I get reorganised, I wonder what my kit will seem like in another six years?
