Emergency Preparedness Basics for the Scared to Prepare || with Melanie Papworth

I sat down with emergency preparedness expert Melanie Papworth to discuss practical ways to prepare for various emergencies without feeling overwhelmed. Melanie shares her expertise on five key areas: evacuation, house fires, food storage, water, and power outages.

We delve into simple, actionable steps you can take to start becoming more prepared, including making a grab list and purchasing a case of water. Melanie also shares insightful stories and tips that will help you and your family stay safe and prepared. Join us for an enlightening conversation that will leave you feeling more confident about your emergency preparedness.

About a few other things...

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TRANSCRIPT

Monica Packer: Melanie Papworth. Welcome to About Progress.

Melanie Papworth: Thank you so much. Thanks.

Monica Packer: Well, it's about time we had you, and I have to admit, even though you've been on my list for literal years, I have self-sabotaged this conversation by not inviting you because I am full of guilt over my lack of emergency preparedness.

Although, I mean, I do have some basics, but in many ways definitely not feeling very un unprepared for what could go wrong in our household. But this is why I've asked you to come, because you not only know what we need in order to be prepared. You teach it in a way where it feels more doable and like accepting. I can conquer. So with that, thank you for being here of.

Melanie Papworth: Of course it's my favorite. I love it.

Monica Packer: Well, I

wanted to start with why. Well, oh, I love that. But I wanted to start with why is it your favorite kind of topic? Like what got you into emergency preparedness?

Melanie Papworth: I think it's just kind of who I am, like how I was born. I don't remember necessarily caring about like food storage as a young child or anything, but I'm like a total planner and I think of. I don't wanna say like the worst case scenario, but I definitely overthink things and prepare for kind of the worst case scenario.

Not super doomsday, but like, okay, what if we're stuck in traffic or what if we're this, or what if we're that? That's just how my brain works. I, I think it was kind of like when I went to college, because I do remember having, cans of food and like a flat of water and stuff under my bed.

And it wasn't necessarily because I thought, oh, what if some major thing happens? Right? It started just as like, well, what if I'm low on money or my tutoring student cancels, or I get sick and I can't work, or something like that. Like I wanna have food. It was gradual.

It was more like that.

Monica Packer: And then.

Melanie Papworth: When I became a mom, I think that's when it really hit me. Like, oh my gosh, if something were to happen, I am in charge of these little people. They have nobody. They have me. That's who they have.

 The buck stops here.

Like, what, what would I do? And so it was kind of like. Not like a scary feeling, but just like, I've gotta figure this out, you know? And so I it was more just self-taught and self-driven and I definitely remember starting like with food in our small apartment and, you know, getting like some shelves to put some stuff on.

So it just kind of built from there. It was very gradual. My parents weren't super into it or anything. We had a little bit of stuff, but not much. It's just kind of my planning, I think,

Monica Packer: Yeah. In some ways it's nice to hear that it wasn't like a big thing that happened. That really scared you. But at the same time, I think, well, I feel like I also like to be prepared, but I don't like to think about emergencies. That makes me feel anxious. And maybe that's one of the reasons I avoid it. But this is making me wonder what it is about emergency preparedness that may scare people off. Like what are their misconceptions? What are their fears? Why do they resist it? Avoid it, put it off. Uh, I'm sure you have some insight on that.

Melanie Papworth: Yeah, I think one big reason is the one you mentioned, anxiety, there's different people, obviously, different personalities, different levels of anxiety. For me, the more prepared I am, the less anxiety I have, and so it's really hard for me to get into somebody's head.

To think I'm gonna avoid it because I am an anxious person and I can't think about that because to me, that very avoidance makes me anxious.

Um, and so I, I don't know, maybe you could speak to that, to, you know, because for me it's like, well then get prepared. There's nothing that's gonna cure your anxiety more than knowing that you've prepared that you've done what you can.

To the level that you're comfortable with. So, I mean, that comes with a caveat too, because even me who, I don't live and breathe it, but I definitely am, like I said, it's very natural for my brain to think through scenarios. Um, I really enjoy it. I've been doing it for years. I with that mindset. Um, but even me, I just think, oh, well if X or Y or Z happened.

We'd be in big trouble. We're not prepared for that, you know, and so even someone like me. Who has quite a bit of stuff, has been doing it for a long time. I have my limits and we're not doomsday preppers. We don't have a big enough house. We live in California. We don't even have like a yard for a garden.

Um, like I don't even garden. I don't have chickens. I don't, you know, and so someone might look at me and think that I must have all of those things, and I don't, because those are limits that either I have chosen to live with

or we've put on ourselves for whatever reason. But I do feel good about what I have thought through and what priorities I have set for myself and the areas that I have chosen to prepare for and in, you know, and so you cannot prepare for everything.

You just can't. And so maybe knowing that and starting with like your most likely scenarios or emergency type situations, and having peace with that, you know, go to bed tonight knowing that, hey, I thought about this and I have a plan, I have my next step.

Which, okay, I totally didn't mean to bring this in, it's either been two or three years, but I am obsessed with the podcast episode that you did with Rachel Nielsen on her show about the next step.

And procrastination, and I post about it every year because I love, I love that episode

and I think that it really relates to emergency preparedness.

You think that you need to have it all and you, you start looking at all of these topics and all of these different scenarios that could play out, and it's just like you give up before you start.

Monica Packer: mm-hmm.

Melanie Papworth: no way we're gonna get there. We don't have the money, we don't have the space. I don't have the time. You name it, like, there's a million excuses, right? And so people don't do anything. And it's like, no, pick the one topic that you wanna focus on and then find the first step.

Monica Packer: Okay.

Melanie Papworth: And that's, that's it.

And anyone can do that regardless of your anxiety level or your financial situation or anything.

Monica Packer: You

know, and it's funny, I mean, I think there's just different areas in our lives where like the anxiety pushes us to act and other times where it pushes us to avoid and, you know, paying attention to why we may avoid it, it could be helpful in making progress in this area. But I also see, you know, these other mis uh, misconceptions from what you just shared, that emergency preparedness is all consuming.

Meaning like I have to be prepared for every single scenario on every single level. Um, another misconception from what I just heard you say is it requires lots of money and lots of time, um, and that they have to be pre prepared for everything. And like the set, like you said, the impossibility of that is actually one of the reasons I think people. Stop before they start. It's because they're like, I can't be prepared for everything, but I'd love your advice here. And that actually is leading us to talk more about how do they actually start. Because you know, earlier you said when you were considering your kids and you, you know, you had your first daughter and you thought, what would I do? What would I do if this thing happened or that thing happened? When I get that question. The overwhelm also kicks in on like, where, where do I start? Because like any one of those things could happen at any time and I don't know what I would do, and I don't know where to find that. And I don't know where the basics are to start. So you walk people through this all the time. I. You said pick a, pick a topic that's important to you, but like what if they all like, I'm like, fire. Fire. Yes. Like smoke. Yes. Uh, car like it. They all seem important. So where would you tell people to start in terms of here are the three to five basics that you need to consider In terms of emergencies?

That I would recommend everyone worry about

Melanie Papworth: Okay. Real quick, I just wanna insert something that came to mind when you were talking there, um, when you said, you know, all of them seem important because of that first child, and what would I do and I can't possibly keep in mind that. Rarely do people die due to being unprepared for something. They get out of the burning house, they evacuate, they get food from the Red Cross or whoever comes in.

I think that a big thing with preparedness is you are making it more comfortable for your family. In most of these scenarios, like we are talking really extreme, if you haven't done anything to prepare for something that will take you to death. So keep that in mind also that when you're looking at all of the different topics, most of them are not life or death.

Monica Packer: Hmm.

Melanie Papworth: Or it's very small steps that will get you to where, like we wouldn't die. We might not have all of our journals and our photos backed up digitally, but we would get out of the house because we have smoke alarms. Do you see what I mean? So evacuation or a house fire, just taking that as an example.

Yes, you can absolutely die, but the number one thing and the number two thing, and the number three thing is have smoke alarms that work and test those regularly. Right? And everything else is not life or death. It's convenience, it's memories, it's sentimental, it's hard, it's, it's all those things. But your family will make it out alive if you have working smoke alarms.

And so I just wanna like throw that out there, that you don't need to be so overwhelmed and feel like it's all urgent because it's not all urgent. but there are a few things, especially like in each category. I think most of them have a few quick wins that could mean the difference between life or death or severe versus.

Being uncomfortable. So, um, so that's something to think about too. You don't need to go from zero to before you can like check off a topic.

Monica Packer: So, so we don't all have to be prepared for food for years and years and water for

years and years and like

Melanie Papworth: Right,

You start with three days and then you bump it up to a week and then two weeks. So yes, I love, like, that's another perfect example. Like, yes, keep your family alive for three days and then move to the week mark and, and build up from there. But most emergency situations. You're gonna have relief from somewhere or be able to get yourself to another location where you would be able to find relief.

And so those, you know, those first few days are what you need to focus on.

Monica Packer: okay, I'm

writing that down first because I, you know, I think of like the, the big, like I have to feed my family for months on

end, and I, and, and that made me, um, forget that it's actually more about. Preparing for an interim, like an interim between like an event and getting more relief or help. So thinking of that as a place to start is really, really helpful. Um, so yeah, continue. That's, that's, that's

definitely a big one right there.

Melanie Papworth: Yeah. Um, okay. So the, the, the topics that I would recommend everyone start with, it doesn't matter where you live or what your climate is or what natural disasters are. A lot of these things overlap, like whether you're in hurricane country or wildfire country or whatever.

Evacuation is an issue, right?

For tons of different scenarios. So evacuation would be one topic.

Another one would be house fires. Those are more common than you think. Um, unfortunately, and it can happen to anybody.

It's one of those things that you see on the news and you think, oh, bummer for them, you know? But it, it happens more frequently than we realize. So, house fires, um, food storage, unfortunately, that is a really overwhelming topic, Um, water.

Monica Packer: Okay.

Melanie Papworth: Water is severely overlooked because you can live without food.

You cannot live without water. So depending on the situation, that's your number one. Your food storage isn't gonna do you good if you don't have drinkable water.

So I would say water. The fifth I would say is power outages, just because those aren't as scary, I don't think, as the other ones, because again, they don't feel life or death unless you have like medication that requires refrigeration or something like that. That's like lifesaving medicine, for instance. Like I realize that a power outage might feel, you know,

more important.

Yes.

Um, but for most people it's a, it's a comfort thing. But again, it ties into a lot of. Emergencies,

power outages happen in hurricanes and storms and in wildfires and you know, all that stuff. So,

um, so yeah, those are the five areas that I think every family could have at least a little basic amount of preparation for.

Monica Packer: Okay. And, and actually that's what I would love to do next is to go into those five areas and if you can tell us like, Hey, here is either the first major thing you need in that area or, or even the first small thing. 'cause it doesn't have to be the major thing. Um, or even if there's just like a couple, um, 'cause I

know each one of these, we could probably take an hour.

Oh,

Melanie Papworth: Oh,

Monica Packer: absolutely. Right.

Melanie Papworth: Or hours.

Monica Packer: But we're

talking to the people who are scared to prepare,

so let's give them, yeah, the basics there. So let's start with evacuation preparation. What do they need to have on hand?

Melanie Papworth: . Make a grab list. It is free. It's free. It takes up one piece of paper so it doesn't take up space in your home.

Um, so there's the two biggest things right there. Money and space.

Monica Packer: And the

Melanie Papworth: I don't wanna say excuse not to do emergency preparedness, but roadblock is time.

And this can take you under a half an hour. And it's free and it doesn't take up space. So get a grab list together and what I mean by that is if you had 10 minutes, if you had 30 minutes, what would you grab and think through that when you are not in a crisis?

Your brain goes into crisis mode and some people thrive there. I'm not gonna say that everyone freaks out. Some people really thrive, but the majority of people they like don't know where their brain goes, but it is not in their head. They freak out and they literally can't think. And it's like your frozen.

Just standing there like, what do I do? What do I grab? I don't know. Um, I'm gonna grab my pillow. I mean, you know,

Can't

think. So think through it when you're calm and, in fact.

Monica Packer: fact, I can

Melanie Papworth: Have you link a, like a brainstorm sheet that I have,

um, to kind of go through your home room by room. Like physically, you go in and you look at stuff and you think, what is irreplaceable in this room?

What would I really wanna grab? Or is there a family heirloom in here? Or would I wanna grab my computer hard drive, or this journal or that photo album or whatever. And also, I really recommend doing this with your family. This is a way to introduce the topic to your kids.

 You know the level of understanding the anxiety levels of your children. Um, some might be able to handle a lot more than others. Um, maybe you just say, what's your most important thing? Like if you had to pick one thing and you don't even tell 'em what it's for.

Where others you might say, Hey, if you had five minutes, what would you be really sad if we had forgotten to grab, if our house burned down? You know, I mean, it, it, there's, there's all levels that you could do, but um, your kids might come up with things that you really hadn't thought of and it's like, yeah, we can put that on the list.

Let's do this. Like, that's fine. But

making a grab list and just having a plan is easy and free. So I would recommend that for evacuation.

Monica Packer: And with evacuation, I'm sure. Um, a grab list is important, which I'd never even thought of. This is so funny. I always thought of just about like a grab bag,

which I think

also relates to the other things too. So

maybe that comes up with the others.

Melanie Papworth: Um,

well, I definitely recommend 72 hour kits, but that is not quick and easy. And it's not a first step.

Monica Packer: Okay.

Melanie Papworth: it's it's a big project. So if you're really gonna do 'em, you know, um,

and so that's why I didn't say it

Monica Packer: you No, I appreciate that. Yeah. But can you tell

people what a 72 hour kit is for those who aren't familiar with that?

Melanie Papworth: Yeah. So the difference, I guess, between a gravel list and a 72 hour kit, they're both for evacuation, but the 72 hour kit covers things that you can duplicate, that, that is reasonable to duplicate. Financially and space wise, and to have pre-pack at all times. So the idea is if you've got 10 minutes to evacuate, if you don't have a 72 hour kit or a go bag or a grab bag or bug out bag, those are all the same thing.

Ready to go. You're gonna spend your 10 minutes gathering clothes and toothbrushes and deodorant and medications and a first aid kit, um, and all those little things. And gathering food, random food from your pantry, right. You're gonna leave the computer hard drive and the, the heirlooms that can't be replaced and the journals.

And so the idea is if you can pack all of that stuff ready to go. Then you can throw that bag in the car and then you still have nine minutes or you know, whatever the situation is, to grab all the other stuff that you would get to the, you know, evacuation center or to grandma's house or wherever you went and think, man, I wish we would've grabbed that and that and that, but you just didn't have the time or the brain space.

So the 72 hour kit kind of covers and yes, you're right, like it covers water and food. So yes, it kind of dives into these other areas as well. But it, it can be a lot depending on how comprehensive you go with those. I have a whole course on those. Like

it, it can get pretty, pretty extensive.

Um, especially, you know, if you have several kids, it can be expensive, time consuming. They take up space. So that's not our first step in my mind. I would go to the grab list, get something on paper, and be able to sleep better at night, you know, and tackle the 72 hour kits later.

Monica Packer: so I'm just different differentiating between the two. The grab list is more about irreplaceable items and the 72 hour kit is more replaceable items. It still matter, like, but that

Melanie Papworth: Yes. For comfort and

yeah. Mm-hmm.

Monica Packer: yeah.

still, still good and necessary to have. Okay. But I, I like that you're starting with like, here's the most basic, here's the

Melanie Papworth: It's the simple thing and it's super important. And on a grab list, I will also say it's, it may not be expensive or irreplaceable necessarily, but like prescription medications, I don't keep those in my 72 hour kit because I can't get extras of those really. So your grab list does cover basically anything that isn't feasible to keep in a 72 hour kit.

There are a lot of different reasons for that, you know, so I just wanted to make that distinction. But you get into that when you're building your kits too,

so,

Monica Packer: Thank you for the evacuation preparation. Basic. What about house fires?

Melanie Papworth: Smoke alarm. Smoke alarm. Smoke alarms. I, I did a three hour interview with a firefighter. And the biggest takeaway, I don't know how many times he said it, but he said, if you have smoke alarms, you're not gonna need all this other stuff because you'll be outta the house. You know? Um, I mean, he was like, go ahead and get a fire ladder.

But he said, if you have working smoke alarms, you should never find yourself in a position where you would need a fire ladder. That type of stuff. You know, he said that most houses have them, but. The people who are caught in a house fire are the ones who smoke alarms didn't go off. Um, so I, you know, I said, what are the top three things?

And that's what he said, smoke alarms, smoke alarms, smoke alarms. I'm not even gonna give you anything else to consider because he said that is your number one, two, and three. So check your smoke alarms. And a lot of people don't know this, but they should be replaced every 10 years,

even if they're still working.

, but yeah, smoke alarms for sure.

And if you want like extra credit, fire extinguisher and keep it in your kitchen.

Monica Packer: All right. I feel like if anyone else is like me, the scared to prepare and already been like, okay, I can do this now, or like, or maybe I'm doing better than I thought.

Like this

is good. What about food

storage? That's the biggie. I know like you probably have a, if you have a course on the 72 hour kits, and you definitely have a course on food storage.

Melanie Papworth: I do, I do,

It's 52 weeks of growing your food storage. And the reason I'm telling you that is. All it is is adding a couple things to your pantry every week for a full year.

This is not something that you have to have $10,000 to go buy fancy cans of freeze dried food.

You just don't, especially if you don't have very much short-term food storage. So these terms are kind of broad, short term versus long term, I consider short-term storage, something that I can buy from the store, put it on my shelf, and I don't have to do anything to it.

I'm not buying it from a freeze dried company. I'm buying it at WinCo or Target or wherever you get your groceries and I'm putting it on my pantry shelf, um, that is

food storage meat or anything in my fridge. And even even up to my freezer.

Monica Packer: And need to be used within a. You know,

Melanie Papworth: Yeah. Yeah.

Within a short time.

Yes. Whether it's two weeks to eight months, you know?

Um, and so if you don't have a lot of that, if you don't have a lot of the basics that you are using on a very regular basis, just making your normal dinners and meals for your family, then that's where you start.

It doesn't have to be hard. Throw a couple extra in your cart every week. I have 52 weeks of different items to think about and there's usually a couple a week.

And so, but all I'm saying is I'm not like trying to pitch that. I'm just saying you can do that without a course. You can do that without somebody. And really you wanna beef up the things that you use on a regular basis first.

Um, before, before worrying about the bigger. More overwhelming things. Now, having said that, I do recommend if you have the budget for it to start with your long-term storage and build that up slowly as well with your short term.

But if you only have 20 bucks a month in your budget, then yeah, just spend 20 extra bucks at the grocery store once a month, you know, on stuff that you use a lot of, so.

Monica Packer: And with long term, we're looking at like freeze dried stuff. We're looking at things that have a shelf life of like 30 years, that kind of thing.

Melanie Papworth: Yeah, I'd say like five to 30 years. Some of them, depending on like the oils and the food and things, um, they really don't last longer than five-ish years, but most stuff has like a 20 to 30 year shelf life. But you pay for that. You pay for the process, right? So it's not as affordable. And so get what you can.

 That's kind of the idea of the short term food storage. It's gonna be more affordable. If you're buying it, how it comes from the store, if you're buying it preserved further than that, you're paying more money for it. So just keep that in mind.

Monica Packer: Okay. And

I like that you're still, you know, just start small and gradually build even there when and how you can afford it.

Um, fantastic.

Okay, so water you said comes first even before food.

So what are we looking at there? I'm just thinking of my parents' storage room filled, like top to bottom with, you know, the soda liter bottles filled with water and like a tiny bit of bleach. That's how we did it. The eighties and

nineties and 2000.

Melanie Papworth: I mean, that works. I now, actually, I do that, I use that trick as a way to get free toilet flushing water.

Monica Packer: Oh,

Melanie Papworth: Um, because you, you know, like

if your, if your water were busted or if it were frozen, like a lot of people couldn't, my dad couldn't flush his toilets. He was in Arctic.

Monica Packer: yeah.

Melanie Papworth: And he was like, our, our pipes are frozen so no water is moving.

And so he is like, we can't even flush our toilets. We're using our bottled water to flush our toilets. So, I mean, just,

you know, so I fill up two liter bottles and just stick 'em under our bathroom counters. And I don't do the bleach thing. Who cares? You're washing your toilet with it, you know, it's just toilet water literally.

 So that's what I use two liter bottles for. But, I would recommend. Go grab a case of water this week and find a place for it. Hopefully inside your home, unless you have a temperature controlled garage, you don't really want it out there if you can help it, um, I know that's hard, but start with a flat of water.

And you know, that will last you a couple days depending on, you know, or even more depending on how many people are in your home. Start there. Don't get overwhelmed with the 55 gallon drums or the water tanks. Do I have a water tank? Yep. I have a 500 gallon water tank in my garage. But do you know how many years it took us?

To save and to, to feel like we were at a place in life where we weren't gonna be moving within four months and we weren't in an apartment and, you know, and so we did the water bottle thing until, until we could go bigger. Um, and so again, start with a flat of water. Even if you have a water tank and you don't have any bottles of water, you should go get a flat of water

Monica Packer: Yeah. Okay.

Melanie Papworth: know, because you can't take a 500 gallon water tank with you if you're evacuating.

That will do us no good. So depending on the emergency, you really need both. You need portable water and you need a lot of a water supply at your home if you're staying in. So just cover your bases, but start with the easiest one.

Get your, get your water bottles. 'cause you could drink those, whether you're home or you're evacuating and it's easy.

Monica Packer: that advice. Okay. Power outages.

Melanie Papworth: Now for power outages, I guess we always go to light sources.

Because, you know, most, most power outages, at least that I experienced as a kid, it was fun. It was like we didn't have lights for a couple of hours and then it was back on and it was fine. You could even start with just like making sure everybody has a flashlight in their bedroom and they know where it is in case it happens, especially if you have young children, or even if you're.

Monica Packer: you

Melanie Papworth: Living alone. Like,

I don't wanna have to walk all the way across my house, you know, when I'm totally disoriented or whatever, without light. So you could start with light sources. Another cool thing that's really inexpensive actually would be a refrigerator and freezer thermometer. They can get pricier,

can get pricier

Depending on the model and all the fancy bells and whistles that you want.

Melanie Papworth: I will say like the cheapest ones are just gonna be the, I don't even know what they're like the mercury. Is that what makes them go?

Monica Packer: probably, I,

don't know,

That's like, are you smarter than a fifth grader? I do

not know,

Melanie Papworth: I dunno. Um, but you know, like the old school thermometers is you have to open your fridge or open your freezer to see that.

So if you can go to the next level of, um, the kind that have a sensor in your refrigerator. You can read it outside on like a little panel or whatever. , that's the kind that we have. So you don't have to open your refrigerator, but you know what temperature your food is at and for how long you can be watching your food.

And they go all the way on up to like, you can get a text message if you're out of state, which is awesome. In fact, we could have used that because we came home from just a weekend trip. And learned that just our neighborhood had lost power all weekend. It had been for two days.

We lost all of our food. It was hundreds of dollars

Monica Packer: Oh yeah. Uhhuh.

Melanie Papworth: And had I known, had I had that little text alert, I could have sent my friend over to start up our generator real quick. Like, we have a generator. We could have saved that. So, I mean, I'm just saying like there are different levels and there's definitely a reason to get, better ones, but, um, but just knowing what the temperature is in your refrigerator. Could, could really be helpful when determining if your food is safe or not after a power outage. So that's something I had never considered and I don't think my parents had, you know, like that's something that I kind of just learned along the way. That's a pretty quick, easy fix to that problem, you know?

Monica Packer: Yeah, things I definitely never thought of for sure. I have learned so much already in just covering these basics, but.

 I am feeling better and I think people who are listening should too in terms of like, oh, maybe I do have more things than I thought, but also whatever, I don't, now I know where to start. And that alone

feels like a better feeling than thinking I need to have years and years of food and water and know how to like kill and gut chickens and

the, I mean, these are the things I think about. I'm like, how do you know? Like, I don't know how to do that. But no, we can just start with this. I was curious if there are some stories from you or from your community, because I know you've taught this for so many years and you have a great membership and courses where you've helped so many households figure this out. Uh, so I was curious if there are any stories that come from people who are like, thanks to this, we avoided that, or We were able to make it through this kind of thing.

Melanie Papworth: Yeah. Yeah, there are. You know

Monica Packer: like countless. 

Melanie Papworth: Honestly, I think the one thing, and it's funny because I haven't even mentioned it, it's kind of like it doesn't belong to any category.

So I have a quick and easy preparedness challenge basically, and it's 20 days, so it's for a month. But you do, I give you weekends off, right?

So it's, it's only 20 things because it's Monday through Friday. That's how I designed it anyway, people can do it.

Monica Packer: Brilliant. And, and the first thing

Melanie Papworth: Right out of the gate. It's horrible. Everyone hates it. I can't believe more people don't quit because, and I did that because I'm the type of person that wants to get the worst over with at the beginning, you know? So the first day I make them go find their water shut off and their gas shut off

and already like, that's the worst in my book.

Like I have to go outside and I have to find like utilities. No thanks. You would be amazed at how many people have messaged me and said, I am so glad I knew where they were. I'm so glad you had me get a tool. I'm so glad you had me check to see that it fit because this happened, or that happened, or we had to do this real quick or this busted, that's my number one and earth shattering.

Literally like disaster, like natural disaster. It's just like little flukes that happened to just their house or Yeah, the Texas freezes that have happened, and things like that. And, oh, we prevented, at least we prevented this from happening or,

uh, we knew how to take care of it.

In fact, I have a quick story. We had just moved into this house and poured cement on the side of our house, kind of like RV parking, and so my husband he had to move our gate anyway, I wasn't self-aware enough, to know that our gas meter was somewhere now where I was backing into because I always back in when I park and normally you would park like in front of the garage door. But I was going further back now and I totally hit a gas meter

because it's like on the side of our house.

We live in California, so I know some peoples are like in their basement or whatever outside. And it like knocked the whole meter off of the wall and we just had gas pouring out of our house. Like it was, it was the loudest kiss you've ever heard. Like I had to yell. Luckily my husband was home 'cause I had a car full of kids and so I just got right back in the car and I drove them down the street.

Um, but we had a shutoff tool. We knew where it was and my husband turned off the gas and it was no big deal. But if we didn't have a way to turn that off and if we had to go scrambling, looking for a, I mean, most people don't even have a tool number one, so then they'd have to be running and find like anything that they could use, some sort of pliers, that could have ended really horribly.

That, that's my like, personal story of this. Didn't need an earthquake or a hurricane or anything huge like that. It was my stupidity. This was a self-inflicted emergency.

But, um, but, but having that, like, it was simple. It's, it's a 20 tool. It takes five minutes to go figure it out.

And it could literally save your life, right? If you have, if you happen to run into your gas meter and blow it right off the side of your house, so you know,

Monica Packer: now we're all gonna be like checking where our gas meters are and. Correlation to where we park, but yeah. Yeah. No, this is so important. Okay. I love hearing that story. Not that it happened, but just how like having that simple knowledge helped in such a big way. Um, any others that you can think of that may be

Melanie Papworth: Oh gosh.

interesting for them and I would, I would say more motivating for them.

I mean, I have had a couple of people who've had to evacuate, um, but they didn't lose their home, so it's not like as you know, um, but they were ready to leave and they left. I mean, it was pretty. I don't wanna say uneventful, 'cause I'm sure it was very eventful for them, you know, to leave.

Melanie Papworth: But they were, they were, you know, in this situation where they were able to go back, you know, the same day kind of a thing, it

was,

Monica Packer: grab a pillow instead of a dog or something like that. Right.

Melanie Papworth: right. They knew what to do, they had a plan. Um, so yeah, I mean, just, just being ready. I think the biggest thing is, I say this also a lot like. This is not just for large scale catastrophes. This is for, I'm in the middle of making dinner and I thought I had checked my pantry, but I hadn't, and I ran out of something and I can run to my back stock and grab it.

You know, it's, it's things like that that happen on a weekly basis to me.

Um, and it's, and now I've come to kind of. For better or worse, like depend on that. You know, I don't have to go grocery shopping as often because I know that I'm covered and I can replace what I steal, quote unquote steal from my back stock the next time I go.

And it's just kind of preparedness in general. In fact, sometimes I recommend take the emergency out of it, just be prepared,

just start thinking preparedness minded, you know? Gosh, if I end up. Getting stuck out there. If this doctor's appointment goes longer, um, and you know, we have to go straight to baseball, maybe I should throw the bag in the car with a few snacks.

That is saving yourself from a big headache that day. And just kind of starting to think a few steps ahead. We'll kind of change your perspective on everything. And I think that it makes. Then preparing for like the next level of an emergency preparedness thing. A little bit more natural and a little bit more like doable for people,

so.

Monica Packer: That does shift. That does shift things,

you know, preparedness. That's it. That's just what we're going for and

you know, hopefully we don't have to worry about the big things, but if and when they happen, we can also be prepared for those things too. So

this has been both illuminating and motivating I would like to hear more about where they should go if they're, if they're like, I want, I want my handheld and I want to be told what to do and when to do it and how to do it, where should they go?

Melanie Papworth: Okay. Quick and easy preparedness. That's where I would start. It's 20 days, 15 minutes or less a day.

So it's more of a challenge. And you can either just get that outright or it is in a membership

as well, like for people who just wanna knock it out.

Like if you knock it out, that's only one month of being in there if you follow the program, you know?  It's the easiest and quickest tasks that are gonna have the largest impact on the most likely scenarios.

I know that was a lot of words,

Monica Packer: It made

sense.

Melanie Papworth: It's the biggest bang for your butt, basically, as far as, you know, they're small cost items, but really, really important things.

Monica Packer: okay, so the quick and easy preparedness challenge. And then, and then and, and if they're in their membership, is that included or is that

Melanie Papworth: Yeah. There's different levels, so you can, you can see it in there.

They can just do monthly access to that. One challenge, or they can do like the premium membership where they have access to that and the 72 hour kit course and the, the food storage thing. You know, so you can kind of decide like, I just wanna work on one thing at a time, or I want access to all of it.

'cause I wanna like, I wanna start a few different topics here, or, you know,

Monica Packer: whatever.

Sure.

Melanie Papworth: So there's different options in there. There's also an option of just a monthly workshop. So it's just one like 30 minute workshop on one topic. And that's it. And there's a new one the next month. So for people who are more, you know, more

Monica Packer: to learn.

Melanie Papworth: Mm-hmm. So yeah, there's really something for everybody in there, but I would recommend if you wanna make like real progress and not be completely crazy, overwhelmed, quick and easy preparedness.

Monica Packer: Okay. That's great. Well, Melanie, this was so helpful. We always like to end our interviews with the guest sharing one small way listeners can take action on what they learned today. Now, I know we covered so much in so many different places for them to start, but if there's just one small thing they could do today to be better prepared, what would that be?

Melanie Papworth: I give you an option, two options, one's free and one to buy. Okay?

Okay. I wanna do

Monica Packer: that.

Melanie Papworth: Get a of water,

a case of water, put that on your grocery list or your target list, or Costco or whatever.

Monica Packer: make A

Melanie Papworth: list.

Monica Packer: okay.

Melanie Papworth: So one's free, one you just throw in your cart. Five.

Monica Packer: Okay, I'm gonna do both. We will also make sure we link to your, Instagram so they can find you there and learn along. And, uh, check out your membership in addition to the, Quick and easy preparedness challenge. Melanie, it's been such a joy to spend this time with you. Thank you very much.

Melanie Papworth: Thank you.

Monica Packer: for having me. And I took you so much longer than I even, I wasn't even looking at the time.

And, uh, check out your membership as well in addition to the, I'm gonna say it wrong again, quick and dirty. Quick and practical. Quick and easy. Quick. Quick. And what is it called? Quick and

Melanie Papworth: Quick and easy preparedness

quick.

Monica Packer: Quick and dirty. Okay. Quick and easy preparedness challenge.