If disaster strikes and public services are limited, you want to know that your family will be taken care of. Learn how to inventory and rotate your food supply, pack an evacuation kit, maintain communication with loved ones, and much more. You'll soon gain the ingenuity and resourcefulness to get your family through even the most unfortunate circumstances. With an eye toward self-sufficiency, Kathy Harrison guides you through preparations and contingency plans that will keep you healthy, safe, and calm in a crisis. Don't Be Scared-Be Prepared How will your family stay warm, fed, and sheltered during a power outage? Do you have an evacuation plan if you are forced to leave your home? Disaster can strike at any time. Be one of the prepared few by following Kathy Harrison's practical plan for emergency self-sufficiency. Learn how to evaluate, organize, and rotate your food supply; pack an evacuation kit; protect important documents from fire; develop a communications system; make nutritious soup with canned and dried pantry items; and entertain the kids for several television-free days. Everything you need to know to survive when public services fail is covered in this essential guide to family preparedness. Part 1: The Oar System Chapter 1: Organize Chapter 2: Acquire and Rotate Part 2: Preparedness Chapter 3: Personal Preparedness Chapter 4: Home Systems Chapter 5: Communications Chapter 6: Preparedness with Children Chapter 7: Pets Chapter 8: Preparing your Car Chapter 9: Evacuation Part 3: Dealing with Disaster Chapter 10: Loss of Power Chapter 11: Fire in the House Chapter 12: Natural Disasters Chapter 13: Toxic Hazards Chapter 14: Pandemic Chapter 15: Terrorism Part 4: Doing it Yourself Chapter 16: Skills for Independence Chapter 17: Food from Scratch Chapter 18: The Stored Food Cookbook With the assumption that "many of us have a false sense of security... assuming that technology will prevail or that some government agency will bail us out in a crisis," this extensive guide gives detailed, down-to-earth advice on what to do when disaster strikes, be it a house fire, an ice storm or biological terrorism. Aided by charmingly retro illustrations vaguely reminiscent of a 1940s air raid brochure, Harrison (Another Place at the Table) presents her "OAR" system for preparedness-organizing, acquiring and rotating supplies-and techniques to safely and even comfortably survive any kind of emergency. She shows how to prepare for a short-term crisis: building a supply of food and water; preparing first aid and evacuation kits; planning communication and a family meeting place in times of crisis. She also presents long-term strategies for self-sufficiency: "eliminating debt and securing a supply of cash in your home"; planting a garden, canning food and making cheese; replacing an inefficient fireplace with a woodstove; building a solar oven. Harrison shows that learning to do it yourself, besides providing some security in an increasingly insecure world, brings less obvious but perhaps equally important benefits: "an incredible sense of self-sufficiency and independence." And pointing out that family preparedness can build community, she reminds readers, "crisis can bring out the best in people, or the worst. Strive to be one of the good guys." (2008)