"What? There is a fire? Quick, I want to wear my pilot jumpsuit!" That was me during my younger years. I had a yellow pilot jumpsuit that I love and would want to wear it should something happen and we had to leave the house in a hurry. Or so I was told. I admit I vaguely recall having the jumpsuit and the photo below helps reinforce the feeble memory.
Thanks to the recent visit by Hurricane Irene, I finally have a Go Bag made. 9/11, blackout, some other minor storm... after each of those past events I would declare I would make a Go Bag, something to grab and run out of the house. I never did, until this weekend. I only have two 500-mL bottles of water and the bag is already pretty heavy. At most it will last me two days, I think. The recommended amount is 1 gallon per person per day. One gallon is about 3.7 L, so I only have about a quarter of the recommended amount. I do have a flashlight which does not require batteries but is rather human-powered. As long as I have the strength to crank it, it will work. I love the Etón series of emergency devices. Flashlight, AM/FM radio, weather radio, USB port for charging small electronics like cell phone and Nintendo DS, powered by human power or solar energy. In my case, the Go Bag's device also has an alarm clock. I had some snacks and a few change of clothes and that's about it. No important documents in waterproof bag, so I guess my Go Bag is not that ready to go.
Maybe it's an obvious thing so it's not mentioned, but in all the stories on disaster preparation I read, no one ever said that we should wear street clothes as part of the preparation. For me, that would be a shirt or maybe even a sweater, then some kind of pants or shorts to hold the house keys, wallet with IDs and credit cards etc, some cash and coins, and the cell phone. What's the point of having a Go Bag but you cannot go right away because you are not dressed to run out into the street. I should have slept in street clothes last night but then did put it on when I woke up. It's not that I don't want to be seen on TV at a shelter in my PJ, I just want to be prepared. It is not so much as the clothes themselves, it's what I can bring with me and home clothes usually don't have pockets to carry stuff. Maybe it is easy for a guy to say what I just did, but I imagine women can wear something comfy that allow them to run quickly.
Did you wonder if I had some other pilot jumpsuit on this morning? No, for me these days life is all about long-distance running, so the shirt of choice I had was my NYRR Queens Half Marathon 2011.
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