You’re a Ham, I’m a Ham…

Okay, so I don’t know if you are or not.

For a couple of years now, I have wanted to do a blog post about emergency preparedness, and just could never quite get it going.  Well, with all that has been going on the last couple of months, Sara and I have been talking about just that.

And now I’m telling you, so we have to do it. 🙂

We are actually preparing a series on emergency preparedness.  There is lots of good information about emergency preparedness, but people often have a hard time tailoring it to fit their gluten-free needs.

Why do we care so much about this?

My church has, for many years, guided us to be prepared for emergencies – have 72-hour kits and a year’s supply of food, if possible.  You may find that strange, but I have seen it be invaluable in people’s lives.  When my father was laid off, when I was a freshman in high school, we lived off our food storage, one of the main reasons we were able to stay afloat during that time.  Also, if you have lots of food in your house, you can quickly improvise when you have unexpected guests.

Sara has seen what it is like for families to have to flee their homes and not have any food, clothes, or cash.  When you have five minutes to pack up your children into the car, and you may have to be gone for 3 days before you get to a point where you can purchase something, what are you going to do?

And what does this have to do with ham?

Last night, I passed my Amateur Radio Operator test, otherwise known as ham radio.  If you saw mine and Sara’s twitter chatter last night, you may have seen that while I was in class, we were having some pretty freaky weather in DFW.  Tuned in to the RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service) net, we were listening to storm spotters  around the county report on tornadoes and hail (some as big as baseball-sized).  I was getting the information faster than the local news station could tweet it.  I am now the 5th licensed (or will be in a few days) ham radio operator in my family.  My father (big county volunteer with the 2 emergency groups), mother, older brother and sister-in-law are all licensed.  In the event that phone communications are down or lines are maxed, I’ll still be able to communicate with my family, something that means a lot to me as a single mother.

Did you see the CDC’s (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) blog post about preparing for a zombie apocalypse last week?  While some may laugh, it was gathering the attention of people who might otherwise not look.  Their point: if you’re ready for a zombie apocalypse, you’re ready for anything.