I am extremely pleased with the way my son handled himself yesterday during the tornado. We have talked about it and rehearsed the actions needing to be taken in case of tornados and other emergencies and it paid off. From the time I told him we needed to be heading downstairs until we were all down was less then 1 minute.

This morning however I am paying for that trip in and out of the basement. To being with the "basement" is not a typical basement. It is more of a slab/crawl space. Sitting down I am fine but there is no room to stand up if you are over 4 feet tall. Originally the only way in was from outside but someone installed a trap door and a set of stairs from inside the laundry room. The door is about 18" wide and maybe 2' across so it is small and then to reach the stairs is a small drop so you have to lower yourself on to them by supporting yourself with your upper body and then "dipping" down to the first stair.

Today we will go buy all the gear for the emergency kit we keep down there for the spring. We have the good lawn chairs, the kind that collapse completely and fit in a nylon bag, several cases of water, canned food as well as can openers, flashlights, candles, a ton of batteries in different sizes, a trash can with lid, a bucket with lid for a toilet, a radio that receives weather channels and short wave, a hand held DVD player and a selection of movies, the cordless and the cell phone, blankets and if there is time to get it, the laptop.

Generally a stay in the basement is less then 30 minutes but there have been some days where we might be down there for an hour or two and in the event we take a direct hit and are trapped down there we have enough stuff for 2-3 days. Since I live in town a direct hit means search and recovery might take a few days because of all the homes. I would hate to be stuck and not have the bare essentials to survive for a few days.

It all sounds funny and when I first moved here I scoffed at those who were putting together large kits like I know have. It only took once of having to be down there for several hours while we rode out a severe storm to change mine. I had nothing with me, no drinking water, food or even a light to see. I decided then that I would not let that happen again. The only thing I do not have and I am going to change that it some extra pallets. There are a few but I need more. Since we are below ground I would like to be able to have them put down and cover with some plywood and that would be able to keep us off the floor and above any water we might get in there with us.

My wife and I discussed it and should we ever move and buy another house, a full basement is a must. It does not have to be finished, although that would be nice, but big enough to set up some old twin size beds we have and be someplace that the boys could move around while we wait it out. We also looked at having a natural gas generator installed. We will lose power several times during this season as the storms blow transformers left and right and we can go for 2 or 3 days sometimes without power. Talk about going stir crazy!!!