Are you ready?

(This is our little family roughing it in our unfinished basement to keep cool during the outages. Note to self- buy a better air mattress)

Lately we've been having some crazy weather out here, which has caused a few longer than I like, power outages. Because of these experiences, it's made me think a lot about emergency preparedness for short immediate situation. I feel like we are rather prepared, and here's a list of things that have come in handy for our 8-9 hours without power in this stinking hot, humid weather.

• Having a basement is the BEST. Not just for hiding your kids toys, but it's always 10 degrees cooler in the basement. I don't know what I would have done right before I had Taryn and we had the fire, and couldn't run the AC. I lived I the basement while Keith cleaned up the fire mess upstairs in the heat. What a guy!
• Batteries. Both of my neighbors asked to borrow matches and batteries during these outages. Good thing I took advantage the the no tax week and stocked up on batteries at Costco.
• Love our Lantern flash lights. It lites up a whole room just like a lamp. We have regular flashlights, but the one ray of light in complete darkness is kind of creepy.
• Portable DVD players. Yes I know not essential but useful to distract young children when you lose power, it's dark, crazy winds, rain and hail are beating on your house, and Dad won't be home till 11:00 to calm everyone down. Pop in "The Cat in the Hat", or a "Barbie" video, and everyones mind goes somewhere else.
• Our $8.00 non cordless phone. It seems like every time the power goes out my cell phone battery is low, and our cordless phone won't work without power. Cheap, easy, and a necessity to call out.
• Board games in the basement. Great opportunity to play Candyland.

Now things I wish we had.

• A generator!! The first thing I worry about when the power goes out is losing $300.00 worth of food in the frig. Not to mention powering a fan or light or my computer or our well so we can get water!!!
• A hand crank power source. Something just enough to recharge my cell phone or our DVD player or run a fan
• Speaking of well for water, I've heard there is some hand crank device to bring up water from your well. Anyone know anything about that?

Here's a few of my lessons learned from small emergencies. I'd love to hear advice from anyone else?