Things are just starting to return to normal here after a couple pretty hectic weeks. The destruction cause by Hurricane Sandy affected many communities. As a volunteer fire fighter in Westchester County…we were inundated with calls starting about midday Monday, through Tuesday and even into Wednesday. In other posts I will share some stories of the relief efforts we have organized for the hardest hit areas of New York. We continue to gather donations/supplies to bring in to these communities. Here I wanted to talk about some of my own preparedness items that either came in handy for myself or that I used to assist others.
1. Premium Car Survival Kit – 
A few days after we settled down from Hurricane Sandy we were hit with a Nor’easter. While we did have some advance notice, I don’t think people realized how bad the snow would be and how bad the roads would be. Driving home from work on Wednesday was terrible. A normal 25 minute drive took 3 hours. Highways were shut down, there were multiple accidents and cars by the dozen were scattered all over the road (and off the road). Winding through the back roads I found myself stopping every 5 minutes or so to help clear an accident or get a car moving again. I always keep multiple kits in my car which came in very handy. From this car kit I had to use the tow rope, reflective triangle, jumper cables, safety vest, work gloves, multi-function shovel, flashlight and tire puncture sealer. I have had this kit in my car for some time and only used one or two items in the past. I was actually amazed that in one trip home…so many of the items came in handy. Now I have to replenish some of the supplies but I couldn’t imagine driving a vehicle without this or a similar kit in the back.
2. Blackout Kit – As you can imagine I have plenty of preparedness supplies in my house. I have been building my list of items for many years so I am pretty set for most emergencies. When 
Hurricane Sandy hit our town lost power. It affected probably 80+% of the community and some people still don’t have their power back almost 2 weeks later. One of the kits we pulled out when we lost power was this one. My family all moved into our living room where we used the fireplace to keep warm. Fro this kit we used the Dynamo Lantern to give us light to play a board game, the squeeze lights for our kids to walk around the house, the two 30 hour emergency candles to give us more light in the room we were in and also the light sticks. I gave one to each of my children. They thought it was fun to carry them around which helped take their minds of the storm and it helped me to keep track of them. These were all very simple items that I could have bought separately but ti was nice that they were all in one place, unused and were there for this situation. To often with regular items we buy they are strewn all over the house and non-operational when we need them.
Please stay tuned for more posts on my experience with this storm, testing my own level of preparedness and how we are helping with the relief efforts.