In Texas, as most people know, it is usually pretty warm, but as of late things were shaken up drastically. In mid-February, Texans were out of power, water, and a lot of essential things as an unprecedented winter storm hit and was covered by national news.

Mia Cluff who is a 15-year-old resident of Texas said, “On Monday February 15 it snowed a lot for Texas… there was a 100-car pileup accident because of the ice too. Then our power and water shut off.” 

The 100-car pileup was a huge mess and took a lot of time to clean up. There were drivers stuck in their cars and 6 people died during this terrible event. After this event, it made people think twice about driving anywhere. With people staying in their homes, a lot were under prepared. With natural struggles due to weather and outside conflicts you may have to be innovative.

Cluff said, “Before the water shut off, my mom filled up a bath tub full of water and we boiled that and used it to wash dishes.”

This was good, quick thinking. According to Cluff, as time progressed with no water and it was hard to leave the house: “School shut down for a week and we didn’t have any clean water, the stores were almost out of everything, and you didn’t have service or heat or light.” They had to make due with what they had in the moment. 

 The Rocky Roar administered a poll to determine how many Idaho families actually prepare for weather, winter, and other things that could happen throughout the year. 82 percent of those who answered the poll said, yes they do prepare. 18 percent said that they don’t prepare.  

This is a super important thing to do, especially if something like what happened in Texas happened in Idaho. You can prepare your pipes around your house for winter by blowing the water out so they don’t freeze and break. You can prepare your gardens for when it is time to plant again so that the season doesn’t kill the garden.

A really important, bigger way to prepare for not only winter but other things that could happen is food storage. According to Joybilee Farm, “Prepare some bags of dried beans and rice with spices and put them into a Ziploc bag — just like you do when you go camping and you’re prepared. No expensive freeze dried foods.  No storage space wasted on food you won’t like and will never eat…Plan for 2,500 calories per person per day plus extras.  Use the food that you eat now as the basis for your planning.  Plan to buy in bulk.  Store it in critter proof containers.  Take into account food intolerances, allergies and dietary restrictions.”

Winter preparation is a very smart idea, even as we move into the warmer spring weather as of late.