Winter Power Outage Scenario

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Surviving Disasters with Children

We have three small children (4 years to 2 months).  Surviving a disaster seems to be a lot harder with kids.  You certainly need a lot more gear to support an infant (diapers, wipes, formula, clothing, etc.).

A few things we learned to help ease things with young kids:

Our 2 month old is very colicky.  Thus he requires a significant amount of maintenance and needs to be held often.  This made doing anything much more difficult.  Normally the two older boys can run off and play, but when the rest of the house was cold they stayed with us in the warm room, which unfortunately was not the room which has all of their toys in it!  Trying to entertain two active boys and keep a colicky baby calm was a bit of a challenge.

So, we found that staying busy is good.  It keeps the kids occupied and their minds off the disaster at hand.  It also helps keeps you warm if you incorporate physical activity.  Games and toys are helpful to have, but actually working (putting things away, cleaning up, etc.) seemed to be the most helpful for our kids.  Tasks with a purpose seemed to have a calming effect that simple entertainment didn’t provide.

We added some small games and toys to our 72-hour kit in case we need evacuate and don’t have time to (or forget to) grab those things.  We also added some coloring books and crayons to our car kit in case we get stranded in the car somewhere.

Keep flashlights for each of the kids in the 72-hour kit.  We did not find their flashlights until after we were done with our disaster scenario.  Sigh.

We also had some light sticks (the kind you snap to activate) that we let the kids play with after we shut off the power.  They made great substitute night-lights at bed time.  We will be adding a couple of these to the 72-hour kit.

And don't expect to sleep as well when you are half frozen and don't normally sleep with the kids in the same room.

Winter Power Outage Lessons

Overall our winter power outage simulation was a very successful disaster scenario.  We learned a few things that will make life easier in the event of a real disaster.  We also discovered the value of practicing things that we are not familiar with, like cooking over camp stoves.

Are your emergency kits ready for a disaster?  Are you ready for a disaster?  Do you know how to use your emergency kits?  I suggest you review my emergency kits page and think through each of the disasters you may face.  You might even plan your own disaster scenario days!

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