You're sitting at home with the fam and just got the kids to bed. This was no easy task considering how hard it's storming outside. You sit down, turn on the Xbox, find the Netflix app, find a movie, you're ready to cuddle up with your sugar-boo (or whatever term of endearment suits you)...and BAM!! The TV shuts off, the lights go out, and the hum of the furnace stops. The power's out. The thunder cracks something furious, shakes the house, the kids wake up an start crying, and you're scrambling for a flashlight. Damn, batteries are dead.

"When was the last time I checked this thing?" you ask yourself. You're too smart for that though, you got batteries stashed in the nearby junk drawer. Functional flashlight in hand...you rush to the kids room, calm them down. Then start to wait..."They'll have the power back on soon guys." you reassure them. "Just crawl back into bed and when you wake up it'll be just fine." But do you really know that? Typically that's the case, but what about when it's not?

Severe storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, blizzards, wild fires...these kind of disasters strike people at random that are not prepared for it more than you probably think.

I'm not trying to scare people here, but disaster survival supplies come at a premium during times like this. And you can guarantee that a good percentage of people in your neighborhood are NOT going to have those supplies on hand. And I promise you that your local Walmart, Target, or corner store is NOT going to have enough on hand for all the people scrambling to make sure their families are covered.

There's basics that every human being needs when talking about survival...shelter, food, water. So let's touch on a couple basics things you can do to make sure that you and your family are covered when a disaster strikes.

Shelter's a basic one. I'm not going to touch on every possible scenario here for what you can do to prepare your home for each type of disaster, there's better resources out there for that. This type of preparation comes down to doing a little bit of research on your environment. In the Midwest, we have things like blizzards, floods, tornadoes, and vicious thunderstorms that actually create the scenario I was talking about at the start of this article. What you want to do is make sure you things that will keep you and your family safe from the elements in case an emergency were to happen. Blankets, a flashlight, extra batteries, and proper clothing for everyone in the home; clothing that will keep them warm in case there's damage done to the home and for whatever reason you have to evacuate or are forced to be there for an extended period of time. Keep all of these things together so they're easy to find. A storage tote or at least a paper grocery bag that has everything in one place might not be a bad idea!

Food and water during emergencies are crucial for obvious reasons. A good recommended amount of water is one gallon per person, per day. Those plastic jugs they have at the grocery store with that dispensing station is a good place to look. You know, where you always see those "weird" people filling up water jugs...time to BE one of those "weird" people!! It's extremely inexpensive to buy the jugs and have enough water stored at your house to have your family prepared. As far as food goes...steaks and mac 'n' cheese probably aren't your best bets. What your gonna want to have are enough NON-PERISHABLE food items to supply your family for at least a couple days. If you're in an area where there's things like hurricanes and you may be on lock-down for longer than that...well, I think you know how many days to stock for better than I do.

These are really basic thoughts here. I'm obviously not trying to give you a full disaster survival supplies guide here...even though I have one!! Lol...my intention here was to jar your thought process a little bit so that you'd maybe consider some of these scenarios as realistic possibilities in your life. I care about my family and I do care about other people's families. I am going to put a shameless plug for my website out there for ya ;-) That's where I have more information available and also some products to help people be better prepared for this kinda stuff. Feel free to check that out, otherwise I appreciate the time you took to read this and feel free to comment, criticize, all that.