Cohousing-L Mailing List: emergency supplies

[Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah (welcome]

What does your community do for emergency supplies? In the Northwest,  
that means earthquake, and or long power outage, and or lack of  
potable city water. (This is RoseWind, in Port Townsend WA.)

We don't have much storage space, just part of someone's shed. So  
we're largely reliant on what people have in their homes, and what we  
have in our Common House, which is mostly fireproof and one story, so  
would likely be standing. We've stashed a few cases of soup and beans  
and energy bars, a couple camp stoves, and some really basic medicines  
and tools. Knowing our common house is likely to be seen as a refuge  
for the larger neighborhood, we also have clipboards, markers, wind up  
flashlights, maps of the neighborhood, so we could send people off on  
errands to check on neighbors (and keep busy).

My dream was to have a dedicated big storage shed which not only had  
real basic common supplies, but had cubbies in which each family could  
store things like camping gear, for their own use, but accessible to  
all in a disaster. But that didn't happen.

One thing we have done is that many of us filed diagrams, in a  
notebook at the common house, of where our homes' emergency shut off  
valves are, so neighbors can know, if need be.

This is Emergency Preparedness Month. Do you have any ideas to share?

Maraiah Lynn Nadeau
RoseWind Cohousing
where the garden is brimming, the orchards are ripening, the bees are  
making honey, and a member's estate just dropped the price of her  
house to only $215,000 !
Details at www.rosewind.org