Add this to your Hurricane Kit

I got an e-mail from Brian's aunt Carol last Sunday telling the family about the terrible flooding in Cedar Rapids where she lives. She said she had hand-crank flashlights, a hand-crank radio and 72 hour emergency kits packed for her family. Unfortunately she said she still found herself going to the store and competing with other shoppers for fast-dwindling supplies of food & toiletries. After experiencing clean water shortages and water rationing (read: few showers) and electricity that was out for an extended period of time, she has suggested adding the following items to our Hurricane/Emergency kits:

Disposable plates, bowls, napkins, utensils and cups
Liquid hand sanitizer
Baby wipes for "bathing" when water is not available
Increased water storage

I spent an extra $5.28 on Friday to add styrafoam plates, bowls and two boxes of 99¢ plastic utensils to our Hurricane kits. I have also been slowly creating a small stockpile of batteries. HEB has a large pegboard wall of coupons in their store over by the floral department. I have noticed they frequently have Buy 1 Get 1 Free coupons for either Energizer or Duracell batteries. I will admit that several times my "emergency" batteries have been used in Aiden's toys (because his epic afternoon melt-downs feel like an emergency) but slowly my collection of batteries is growing from their free offers. HEB is also doing a buy-one-get-one free on Bic grill lighters right now. We use them all the time and it felt good to put a brand new one away with the disposable utensils so I know I'll always have a fresh lighter on-hand should we ever be in a situation where the grill is our only way to cook food.