Natural disasters like floods are traumatizing; however, the experience is always worse for aging adults. Aging adults might not be able to respond as quickly as younger people would. This explains why preparation is essential for an aging adult. Having an emergency kit will ensure your safety and survival during this crisis. These are things to include in your emergency kit when preparing for a flood in Victoria, TX:
Water
Aging adults are prone to dehydration; therefore, it is always advisable to pack extra water in the kit. In the advent of the crisis, it might be impossible to pump water due to a power outage. Also, the water available might not be safe for drinking because of the flood. Therefore, you must be able to access clean drinking water.
You can store the water in small bottles instead of giant jugs to avoid the unnecessary weight.
Dry Clothing
After the flood, one of the essential items you will need is dry clothing. Your kit should include a sweater, light shirt, windproof jacket, and dry socks. You can also add pants, shorts, a hat, and sunscreen if the weather becomes sunny after the flood.
Supplies For Personal Care
There are supplies that are important to ensure aging adults live comfortably and maintain personal hygiene. Therefore you need to stock up on essential items like barrier creams, pads, latex gloves, toilet paper, bathing products, wet wipes, and many more. You can add paper towels, hand sanitizer, wipes, face masks, and disinfectant spray.
These items are fundamental to ensure you keep up with your daily routine care during and after the flood. However, if you cannot pack these things you can move to a retirement community. The team members in these communities are trained to help residents in this type of situation.
Important Documents
Documents that serve as your identification are crucial, so it is crucial you keep them safe. You don’t want to deal with the stress of losing an important document after the flood, so keep them as part of the kit.
Some of these essential items include ID cards, driver’s licenses, insurance cards, power of attorney documents, and other essential papers. If you need to evacuate your house, you can bring copies of your home’s lease or deed, insurance policies, and other documents.
Food
Same as water, food is a must-have item in your preparedness kit. Most significantly, if you are on medication, you will need to eat daily to stay healthy. Even though you might not have an appetite for food being an aging adult, you need to pack enough healthy food yourself.
Communication Tools
Cellphones, the internet, and local news are ways we stay updated about happenings around us. However, they might not be available during natural disasters like floods. In situations like a flood, it is essential that you get information on happenings.
While other forms of communication might fail, a weather radio will come in handy during this period. Therefore, you need to include a weather radio as part of your preparedness kit. Some weather radios have other functions, as they include cell phone chargers and lights ensuring the number of electronics in your bag is reduced.
