Being Prepared

Recently in our sacrament meeting for church we had speakers talk on emergency preparedness.. Yesterday I received this email from our friends and made me really think about being prepared. Its always been something I knew I should be better at and slowly we are getting a food storage and other necessities, but nothing that would last more than a month so far.. I had made it a goal to start putting one together since the meeting in church, but it's been a slow progress.
They always have talks on being prepared, but then you never hear anything about having to use it anytime soon... well, this email really stuck out to me and I really don't think it's just chance that the being prepared has been a huge topic of discussion more and more AND then all the things we've heard about the bird flu AND then receiving this email. I just thought it might interest some of you.

I received this from an LDS friend.

See attached article explaining a recent talk given by the head of the Center for Disease Control on the expected coming pandemic...

I went to a seminar about a month ago put on by the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints. Dr. Susan Puls, who is a cardiologist and who was appointed by the first presidency of the church as the head of the church's pandemic committee, spoke. She said she was not an expert on pandemics as this was not her speciality, but in the two years she's been in her position, is fast becoming one. She now works for the church on a full-time basis working on planning for the pandemic and trying to get the word out to as many church members as possible. There were about 1400 people at the Saturday all-day seminar I attended - they were from Idaho down to St. George, Utah.

In her capacity, she works with the governors pandemic committee and the federal pandemic planning agency.

She also said a pandemic is coming - not 'maybe' but is DEFINITELY coming.

She says the pandemic is expected within the next two years but she personally belives it will be 'sooner rather than later.' The various groups (CDC, WHO, etc..) do not know what the pandemic will be but 'first among their list of suspects is the avian bird flu. It's only one mutation away from being easily transmitted from birds to humans and from human to human.'

She said the World Health Organization expects 40% of the world population to become sick. Of those who become sick, they expect 50% will die. You do the math - there are over 6 billion people on the earth today - that puts the death rate at over 1.4 billion people - and she says these deaths will happen over only a 3 to 4 month period of time.

Dr. Puls related that when the pandemic hits the US, mandatory quarantine's of all infected and NON-INFECTED peoples will occur within the first 48 hours. Only emergency personnel (Dr's, nurses, firemen, police, national guardsmen, etc..) will be allowed to leave their homes - not even to go to the store, etc.. This quarantine will last during the duration of the 'pandemic cycle' which will last approximately three months.

Her main point was that everyone will need a MINIMUM of 3 months supply of food at home as the governments of the world will be overwhelmed within the first week and cannot be counted on to provide food, medical help, etc..

She only briefly spoke on the 'social disruption' that will occur and did not go into any detail about what plans may, or may not exist, to deal with this. However - think about this - if your neighbors (both those you know and strangers) run out of food and are starving how might they react? Then think of all the individuals who already live outside of the law and are only 'controlled' by our current legal system. How might they react when law enforcement becomes innefectual due to illness among the ranks and those who abandon their jobs to stay home and protect their own families. Ditto for the national guard and our own military.

Anyway, this isn't to scare anyone - just to provide a 'heads up' as 'to be forewarned is to be forearmed.'