We live in New England, where we see very few storms that can cause substantial damage. Of course there are exceptions, such as flooding and Nor'easters that bring 4 feet of snow. Still, we are just accustomed to that type of weather and rarely need to do anything special to prepare other than buy extra bottled water.
A few months ago, a hurricane-turned-tropical-storm really had me nervous. We do not see many hurricanes and we did not know how far we had to go to be truly prepared. Did we need to purchase dried food so we would have an emergency food supply? All we ended up doing was buying a variety of crackers and breakfast cereal. Of course, we did not end up losing power or anything from that storm.
Then in October, we had an unseasonable Nor'easter. I thought it was not that much snow, but because it was so heavy, so many people lost their power, heat, and hot water from a few days up to a week. That was completely unexpected. Without power, our refrigerator, stove, and oven were out of commission. Luckily, our power came back fairly quickly, but we were not so luck with the heat and hot water.
Just a few days ago, our refrigerator stopped working. It made me question my decision not to have long term food storage arranged when we were facing that storm. Although I like the occasional surprise, this is not the kind of surprise I like to get.
