As I have written before, in Puerto Rico, the conditions today are unimaginable for most Americans. Some residents have been without power for months, and they have been relying heavily on donated food and water coming from FEMA and other organizations to subsist. Now, those Americans are faced with the departure of federal aid.
NPR reports that FEMA is pulling out of Puerto Rico, despite a third of the island remaining without power. FEMA says it only estimates that 1% of the island’s population needs emergency food and water. But what if you were part of that 1%? Adrian Florido writes:
In a sign that FEMA believes the immediate humanitarian emergency has subsided, on Jan. 31 it will, in its own words, “officially shut off” the mission it says has provided more than 30 million gallons of potable water and nearly 60 million meals across the island in the four months since the hurricane. The agency will turn its remaining food and water supplies over to the Puerto Rican government to finish distributing.
Some on the island believe it’s too soon to end these deliveries given that a third of residents still lack electricity and, in some places, running water, but FEMA says its internal analytics suggest only about 1 percent of islanders still need emergency food and water. The agency believes that is a small enough number for the Puerto Rican government and nonprofit groups to handle.
Relying on help from the government cannot be your backup plan. Don’t allow yourself to be held hostage to a budget line on a bureaucrat’s desk in Washington D.C. Don’t let a statistical model predict your food and water requirements. You must get prepared.
Step one is to read my series on water storage. Do that before anything else. Step two is to take stock of your food storage. My guess is that you couldn’t last six months on the food you have in your house. If you could, great for you. You’ve done a better job than almost all Americans. If you can’t, try estimating how long you could survive with the food in your house. Remember, when the power is out, and you have no backup energy source, the food in your freezer and refrigerator won’t last very long. Can you last a week? Two weeks? A month? If you said no to any of those, you aren’t nearly prepared.
Get prepared to survive with or without the help of the government. You can only confidently rely on one person, yourself.
