HB Prepper - Emergency Preparedness

 This article was inspired by a New Zealand Geographic article written by Tom Doig titled The Preppers Next Door. The link to his full article is here -  The preppers next door | New Zealand Geographic (nzgeo.com)  and it's well worth a read. It got me thinking that it could make an interesting article if I was to write about what started my journey - on the road to becoming a dedicated prepper. I belong to and facilitate/help to guide a group of around 20 preppers from a wide variety of backgrounds and lifestyles. We are at various stages in our preparedness journey with some having a lot of experience, who have been prepping for years, and others who only came onboard during the recent Covid pandemic response. In my case, my eyes were first opened to the need to be prepared yourself rather than to rely on the authorities when I saw the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina back in 2005 and how the people were pretty much left to fend for themselves, with those who did...

 My last article, published here on February 9th 2023 was titled "Timely Reminders and General Thoughts" And, timely it certainly turned out to be. Only 3 days later Cyclone Gabrielle paid New Zealand a visit that we on the east coast will never forget. I also said, in that last post, that I would make my next article about what I was doing to prepare. So, here it is.  Let me first say that compared to how Gabrielle impacted people's lives in places north of Hastings and Napier - such as Esk Valley and Wairoa, also Pakowhai - which lies between Hastings and Napier - we got off very lightly. The damage that some have endured, losing homes, livelihood's, livestock and human life has been terrible.  We personally were very lucky that our only losses, during the gale-force winds and driving rain of Gabrielle, were our veggie gardens and fruit trees. This happened because our property from front fence to back fence was under about a foot of floodwater, compromising our sep...