All month we have talked about how much I love September! There are so many fun things that happen in September – I love football, changing leaves, so many things about September rank among my favorites. September is also National Preparedness Month. I love to talk/think/do things about preparedness. When talking about things like National Preparedness Month, I think it is really easy to become overwhelmed by preparedness. There are so many topics and so many things to do. You can listen to lectures and read articles and find dozens of ways you are not prepared. It is really easy to look at the big picture of being prepared and begin to feel panic set in, which is not good at all. We have been breaking National Preparedness Month up into smaller topics and we created sections in a preparedness binder. One of those sections was titled Repairs.

Did you find or create your preparedness binder, label it and dedicate it to emergency preparedness? Did you find a place to keep it that is handy and easy to access when you have a note to write or a plan to make? Did you put the binder in that place? I hope so! Go get it and let’s work on the section titled Repairs. This is a section that many people don’t think of when they talk about Emergency Preparedness. Most people are thinking about the big things. There is preparedness for natural disasters, financial disasters, time disasters (you know – those crazy busy times) and even for things like the zombie apocalypse. But what about the emergencies that are smaller? Maybe it is the flood from the broken water heater? Or the time when the fuse box sparks and you know there is a short someplace?

Those are the kinds of things I think about when I talk about emergency preparedness and repairs. There are probably quite a few situations in which you need to call an expert and you need to call them immediately. What will you do if you were depending on the internet for information when the power is out? What if you a left fumbling for the right name and phone number to reach your plumber as the water spills farther across the carpet? There is a smart way to make these situations less of a disaster. Keep all of these important names and numbers in your Emergency Preparedness Binder.

It is an easy section of the binder to fill out, so do it soon. Sit down with the phone book or the internet and start making your list. Start with the numbers for your local utility companies. Don’t forget to add numbers for places like the cable and internet company. Think of all of the repair people you have used or would use if needed. Think of companies like those for windows and garage doors, who would you call? If you know these ahead of time, getting a repair in an emergency will be so much easier. Don’t wait, fill out the repairs section of your binder today.