One point, though. Do you really think having three days of food and water in your house will really help you much when your house is underwater?!

I do agree that many people who still have homes could have been helped greatly by this. And just as many would have been royally screwed, regardless.

Oh, I don't know Brad. Were one to live in a place prone to flooding, it might just take a bit of common sense to store the provisions somewhat higher than most of us have to. Or is the government required to do this for us as well.

(Huh. Wizbang ate my own comment)

Brad, those supplies might do you some good if you're stuck on your roof. And I saw a LOT of roofs out of the water on the TV.

J.

And a lot of those folks would have loved to have had ome water handy while they were grilling up there. Have you ever been on a roof in New Orleans in late August?

What bullshit. Yeah, if only Atrios hadn't made fun of Tom Ridge, all of those people in New Orleans would have had survival kits. Which I'm sure means that everyone reading this blog has a survival kit at home, with three days of food and water. And make sure the water is replaced with frequency so it doesn't go bad. Yeah, I'm sure everyone would have done that if it wasn't for those lefties. And by the way, if you follow most of those links, they don't lead to Lefties mocking the idea of keeping an emergency supply kit. They primarily are mocking Ridge for his stupid color coded alerts, which did absolutely no good for anyone, and for the propensity for raising and lowering terror alerts with absolutely no context or explanation of what people should do with the information. There was also a healthy dose of cynicism around the notion that the alerts were raised and lowered for political reasons. So let's not conflate all that into Lefty bloggers encouraging people not to have disaster kits. Offhand references to duct tape don't exactly equate to ridiculing the idea of keeping an emergency kit. And if you look at the coverage, ther was next to no mention of disaster preparation as part of all this. I really don't think the average citizen thought that the Department of Homeland Security was formed in case there's a flood. And that aspect of their work certainly wasn't emphasized in any of the conversation around duct tape.

By the way, keeping an emergency kit isn't something that originated with Tom Ridge. When I lived in Southern California, we kept earthquake kits, but that's because earthquakes were a fairly common occurence. And I can guarantee that most people didn't have earthquake kits, and the ones that did were full of corroded batteries and old, stale water.

Use your common sense. Do you really think that hundrds of thousand of poor people in New Orleans would have had disaster survival kits in the event of a flood, if only the left hadn't made fun of Tom Ridge? Talk about being desperate to deflect blame.

Chris, I simply observed that they mocked the idea of having emergency kids. You're the one that says that anyone was actually swayed by their pieces, and blamed them for any deaths.

J.

Jay Tea,
You are entirely correct about the 3 day preparedness kits. The LDS church has long encouraged its members to have what we call '72 hour' kits. If you are interested in a good source for these, go to www.beprepared.com. It is not affiliated with the LDS church, but you can buy ready made kits in a variety of combinations and other emergency supplies.

Other than an earthquake, most natural disasters offer at least a little warning. If I was caught with my pants down, I would like to think I wouldn't whine to the government because I hadn't assembled a few days provisions.

My family has made preperations, but we'll certainly double check - if we had an earthquake, my all-brick house would be in the basement - on top of my supplies.

Hmmmm.

"Use your common sense. Do you really think that hundrds of thousand of poor people in New Orleans would have had disaster survival kits in the event of a flood, if only the left hadn't made fun of Tom Ridge? Talk about being desperate to deflect blame."

Yes I do. Did the lefties talk it up as a good idea? Did they pressure their politicians to get people to assemble such a kit? Or did that mockery prevent any politicians on the left from supporting it?

Did the lefties do an equivalent of the "get out the vote" drive? Isn't the Democratic Party supposedly the party of the poor? Aren't the poor the single group most unable to cope with a disaster?

So why didn't the Democratic Party, and it's leftist ideologues, get together to prepare their constituents? Or was mocking Ridge more important than preparing people for disasters?

Everything has a cause and effect.

I'm still trying to find in all of those links where the Left mocked the idea of having preparedness kits. The only mocking was of the idea that duct tape and plastic sheeting would protect against a chemical attack. And the point of the comments was that the color coding and suuggestions for duct tape were the essence of what Ridge had achieved on the job. I'd still like someone to point out to me where the left is on record as discouraging people from having preparedness kits. Oh, but now, according to Ed, the left is at fault for not campaigning for preparedness kits among "their" constituency.

And it's more than a little disingenuous to say "I simply observed that they mocked the idea of having emergency kids. You're the one that says that anyone was actually swayed by their pieces, and blamed them for any deaths." You linked to Cold Fury. Here's what he said "Do you think anybody might have taken Ridge’s pronouncements and urging to be prepared, had his every comment not been met with mockery, allegations of political dirty tricks, and the relentless cry of “duct tape duct tape”?" Do you link to other sites, but don't agree with what they say? Perhaps you could be clearer about that.

And Tom Ridge didn't invent the idea of preparedness kits. So whether people had them or not depended very little on anything he said. As I pointed out, we had earthquake kits in California. We didn't have them because of Ridge, and people who failed to assemble them didn't do so because Ridge was being mocked. And don't tell me that more than about five percent of the population thought that Tom Ridge had anything to do with natural disasters. All of the talk about the kits revolved around terrorism. Can we assume that, say 75 -80 percent of the people in the Red states have emergency kits. Or did Atrios talk them out of it, too? This is a classic red herring. We're not supposed to criticize Bush, because after all he can't prevent hurricanes. But we can speculate that lefty bloggers have some responsibility for the state people are in in NO, because they mocked Tom Ridge two years ago. And if you're not saying they have any responsibility, what was the point of the post?

I had my kit ready. Bottled water, canned goods & easy food, can opener, flash lights, emergency candles, batteries & radio with TV reception, lantern & lantern fuel, camp coffee percolator (with filters, creamer, suger, cups), camp utensils, camp stove, kitchen matches, towels & soap, bug spray,rain gear.

I keep it in a large tupperware type water proof box. I'll need to replenish it now, as we used some of the stuff.

I'm going to add some things to it now though. We bought a battery powered TV Saturday for 30 bucks. I'm going to ditch my current transistor radio for one of those crank dynamo radios.

A day and 1/2 before this storm hit (and every storm) I bought a case and 1/2 of beer (sometimes I get liquor too depending on my mood!), charged up my ipod, put my lap top in my emergency kit, filled up both cars and two gas cans.

My husband usually mocks me, but I always pull this stuff out into the middle of the house (the hallway that I consider the 'safe zone') add to it my first aid kit and a sleeping bag and important papers. If I feel I have to flee I've got it all handy. If I don't flee, I've got it all handy. Fortunately we've never had to flee. But we've spent many a powerless post-storm enjoying the stars listening to the radio with beverages and full bellies. The beer? We drink some, we trade some for ice or other amenities. We offer it to neighbors in comraderie. Beer...it's a good thing!

My power came back Saturday. I'll have my emergency kit replenished by the weekend.

Lunacy

Maybe living in a city on the coastal US that is below sea level isn't such a good idea. Rebuild New Orleans? Yoo betcha!! Darwin is smiling as natural selection rolls on....

lunacy, god bless you and your preparedness. I bet your husband mocks you out of irritated jealousy that he didn't think of it first.