Remember Y2K? I do. There are people out there who have only just finished the stockpiles of sardines, toilet paper and bottled water they laid in for that non-event.

A very common element of natural disasters is destruction of the built environment. If your town is flooded, or burnt, or shaken to bits by a major earthquake, your stockpiles of sardines, toilet paper and bottled water will be under water, reduced to ashes, or buried in the rubble along with everything else. And if you have to flee, the difficulty of your journey increases geometrically with the amount of stuff you insist on taking with you.

Snowstorms, however large, don’t normally count as natural disasters because their effects ain’t nohow permanent. Life is unpleasant for days, or as long as a month, but then there’s a thaw, and eventually spring comes. Loss of electrical power due to damage to the distribution system is — by disaster standards — soon rectified, and people who have enough electricity to become dependent on it also have back-up resources to fill the gap. People (like me) who lived through the 1998 ice storm talk about heroic hydro crews and soldiers bringing generators to bush farms — that’s back-up resources.

The best way to prepare for disaster is to accept that most stuff is nice to have but, when push comes to shove, not critically important. When wildfire threatens or flood waters rise, grab the kids and the cat and leg it for safety. Figure out the rest later.