But there's still time to take steps to prepare yourself for the worst, diabetes-style. Here are the basics.
1. Make sure you have enough meds to get yourself through two weeks, because if the pharmacies and gas stations don't have power, you won't be able to fill prescriptions. Ask your pharmacist now for extras if you are in one of the warning areas.
2. If you use insulin, make sure you have some kind of cooler and ice packs so that you can keep your insulin from getting too hot. Don't put insulin directly in contact with freezer packs or ice as cold temperatures will ruin it.
3. Stock up on protein foods that survive without refrigeration like nuts and protein powder so that if you can't cook, you will have something to eat. Avoid salty snack type proteins as your access to water might be limited.
4. Keep your meds and meter right by you with the things you will grab if you have to make a fast exit. I mean VERY fast. Like if the roof is coming down.
Hopefully none of you will need this advice, but you never know when you will be the unlucky person that ends up in the shelter, or in the midst of the flood. Overpreparation is better than the opposite.
Hope you all keep well and safe. . .
8 comments:
I hope you are safe and well. I would add that a general "go-bag" with change of clothes, cash, etc. is good to pack, and the web site Making Light has some clear instructions for what all should be in an emergency preparedness bag.
Be safe.....Let us all know all is well :)
We got through safely without losing power, so we're fine.
But there is a lot of serious flooding in our region (the part of Western Massachusetts, just south of Vermont) and friends have been evacuated or seen their businesses go under water.
We were extremely fortunate that this came on land as "only" a tropical storm. With how many trees came down just from the rain, I don't want to think what a full scale hurricane wind would have done.
Jenny,
Thanks so much for the update. I'm sure I'm not the only one checking in here hoping to hear you are OK. I'm sorry about your friends and everyone in the region enduring the aftermath of dear Irene. I've watched some horrifying video from VT. What to do!? Hoping for all a rapid and complete recovery.
I'm only 18 miles from Brattleboro, so I'm very familiar with the streets that are completely underwater.
I'm also disgusted with the way that the national media have been reporting this storm. "Oh, the hurricane turned out to be no big deal!" Meanwhile huge swaths of the rural northeast are experiencing flooding worse than anything recorded going back to the early 1800s, and many small towns have suffered flooding so bad they may never recover.
Glad you are safe and still online.
I am sorry that the flooding has been so bad. many people have been flooded in the UK in the past couple of years and seems to take a very long time to get homes habitable again, often years.
Jenny -
I'm glad you came out okay with the hurricane and all the flooding. I was thinking of you up there (Greenfield and Montague weren't spared). Totally agreed on people pooh-poohing the storm. If nothing happened to you, be grateful, I say. Being prepared is not an inconvenience. It's just smart. Thank you for your diabetes-specific tips.
Take care.
We got off very easy. Relatives were trapped in one of the towns without roads in VT, and others are still without power in CT--one won't get it back until Tuesday.
The places hit the hardest were all places no one expected big problems. So we all do need to be more aware of these preparedness issues.
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