It had been raining scary the past many days. It appears there will be no letup.
Being prepared need not mean spending a lot of money. It means not relying on the government or others for help when you can avoid it. For while we have our own version of 911, the efficiency of responders still leaves so much to be desired. They might come to you after hours instead of just 15 minutes. They might also come much, much later. . . . at your funeral.
In other words, let us not be cry babies, crying “help me, help me” when we could have helped ourselves by being prepared. Simple preparations can mean saving our lives and our loved ones.
Keeping a fully charged flashlight can mean our being able to find our way out of harm’s way like when we are marooned by a landslide or when our house collapses in the middle of the night.
A fully charged cellphone can mean being able to call for help or to inform others of our situation.
A bottle of water can mean a day or two more of survival if you could still move a little while buried under a pile of rocks or under the rubble.
A junk tire or anything of weight like rocks or hollow blocks on the roof can mean a house with the roof still there when the rain takes the sound of quarreling cats and dogs, or even after a howling wind of a typhoon passes.
Let us have battery powered radios for us to be always updated about the weather and other factors that might endanger our lives.
Let us keep ourselves warm to avoid getting sick and being brought to the hospital where we might even catch the Covid-19 virus.
Have enough food in the cupboards just in case something would happen that would prevent us from going out to buy or beg for our tummy needs.
Medical cabinets must be well-stocked with emergency items and maintenance meds.
Surely there are a lot more we can do if we took time to think. Let us do it while we still can.
And don’t forget Murphy’s Law: “If anything bad can happen, it will happen at the worst moment.” **