With the recent disaster in Japan and others including the BP oil disaster, middle east revolutions and more each day more and more people bring up disaster preparedness. Being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, preparedness has been talked about for years especially centered around have a year’s worth of food storage. However, the best way to be prepared is to actually practice disaster drills. Think about fire drills at work and school. They can be very disruptive but if a fire broke out there do you know what to do? Can you do it in near automation mode? If the answer is yes then you know why drills are important.
There are many good preparedness blogs though one of the best for the average person I believe is from one that survived Katrina and posted about the experience with worksheets on his blog, “Listening to Katrina.” He gives a great outline on getting prepared in your own region
The important part of preparedness though is to practice. Have a drill every 6 months on getting out of the house in 30 seconds or packing the car for evacuation in an hour. Turn off the power and see if you can hook up the generator if you have one or just see how you would manage without power or water. These practices can be as short or as long as your family wants to tolerate. One way to make sure you always practice is whenever the fire alarm goes off practice the fire drill. If you are like me the occasional burning of the food will provide you with at least a drill every 6 months. 
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