Realization that my emergency preps were flawed and here's why

While I should say that I am a self professed "prepper", it all originally came about due to a scary dream I had. After a simple nights disturbed slumber I started to realize that I needed to be prepared to handle and hopefully survive a possible disaster. Like many before me I started by researching via internet and this set me off into a journey that included some many radicals and some scholars who all had the same view (just in many different forms) all on a path to survival. 
I have participated in Facebook groups, blogs, others .com's and webinars that I am still learning from but I am in no means fully prepared for anything as this really does take more money than I have available to me at any time. I love how many others advise to have debt handled or paid off prior to any disaster, which I could only dream of (looking over my shoulder at the stack of collections notices I have), I do say i understand this and yet I don't. Honestly, I don't think at a time of civil unrest or nearly any other disaster someones going to check my credit report. I know I certainly won't! 

Now many of my friends and family does not know me as the cliche prepper, though many know of my stash. That had all started in preparation for my having my 3rd and last child, knowing I would need to leave my 20 year job in management, I had stared into the world of couponing, canning and farming. This was my start into homesteading and I never even realized this; but homesteading and prepping go hand in hand as you hear from both fronts "becoming self sustainable" to survive. Ok, really much of this was handed down through the generations of family that survived the great depression and WWII though in the 80's we scoffed at our parents; we had become the generation of excess and expendables. Now we realize by giving it new names that really what we are trying to learn and get back to was what we didn't want to hear from our parents. Yes, they were right! Yes, I'm becoming my mother!

So my Ah-ha moment was just this past Sunday when bad weather was coming through, we knew the storms could be bad as told by the news; my husband jokingly said he hoped a tornado would come take the garage (he discovered earlier that the roof is rotted on one side).  Sudenly we got the EBS alert on our phones at the same time while chatting about our day in the garage watching the rain starting again. 
I immediately grabbed my 3 year old daughter and ran into the house, only her the EBS on the TV followed by the sirens blaring outside. This is not the first time I had heard these sirens but where we live a touch down is quite rare (not impossible); this is not the first time we had rotation that made us thunder down to the basement as well. THIS WAS the first time doing so while believing I was prepared and with a toddler in tow! My basement has many problems against it as it is comprised mainly of field stone and I have water that flows through on any rainy day. This was different, as it was flowing like a river.
In this picture is what it looks like on a normal rainy day.  

I was realizing, while looking on my iPhone for the radar and realizing my charge was very low I had no way to charge it. I had grabbed my Ipad in thinking I could occupy my toddler with the kids aps on there but ended up trying to save my phone charge so I used the Ipad instead. In conversation with Prepperbabe online there were many things I had not thought of, in the event a tornado did hit my home or neighborhood and we were trapped or the ruins of our home when it was all said and done. 

 In the time of quick thinking, escape from impending danger there is very little time to grab everything and get to safety; especially while handling children, family and/or pets. I know where I needed to go and I know what the chances of certain disasters in my area given probability calculations and I know what I need to have to prepare for disasters. What I had not thought of was that I need to have many of the same items for each situation. Examples of this is your emergency binder. I knew if there was a reason I needed to bug out for any reason I had it, all important info in it and I always kept it in one spot so I could grab it. After thought was that many times in the event of a tornado you can only have minutes to seconds depending and it is unpredictable by nature; I grabbed it but after I had already gotten family downstairs. I had a crying toddler and 3 terrified and confused dogs wanting to get out of the wet basement and I had to find a way to leave them to go get what I should have already had. 
Lesson #1 have a multiple emergency binders for each situation! 

Next I needed to charge my phone and I could have grabbed the charger but I did not. 

Lesson #2 Have alternative ways to charge mobile devices such as hand crank (Sony makes one), Solar hack or even multiple plug-in's available.

Then while sloshing though the water in the basement and even listening to my dogs lap it up (yes this is quite funny) I suddenly felt the urge. Awe jeez, are you kidding me? NOW?! This was my though but self inflicted as I had left my Bud Light upstairs on the kitchen counter. DANG IT! While I am sure in a disaster it wouldn't matter if I pulled trou and did my deed in the flowing water of the basement going out to the storm drain, but if there was no tornado I would not want that memory. So I chanced it and went to the bathroom upstairs! 

Lesson #3 I have buckets, I have the baby's portable folding toilet seat, I have garbage bags and I have pool noodles. I'm sure could have had a hack ready for this as well!

Lesson #4 These same buckets can be used as simple seats while waiting for an emergency to pass, yet I was sure i had no where to sleep downstairs in the very wet basement.

Lesson #5 is that (even though this is not a pic of my stock in my basement) your stock or stash needs to be safe and secure to prevent injury during extreme weather OR have a separate designated shelter area away from these items.

I had my BOB in my possession at the time and many items stocked in said basement that could sustain myself and my family all ready to go and that had made me proud. I knew ultimately that having my family survive, even if it meant loosing much of what I had would be fine with me in this type of disaster. Their lives meant more in my life than stuff in possession. 

Joking aside and knowing my prepping for any disaster will always be a work in progress, most of the time learning is experiencing.  Now it's back to work on our disaster plans and preps!