Economy, disasters have being ready on everybody's mind

SANDY — Meredith Pond used to shake her head when she saw her parents bring home large loads of food and supplies from warehouse stores.

"They're crazy," she thought as a teen.

The adult Meredith has been a self-described emergency preparedness "hobbyist" for some time. It was what her parents and the LDS Church taught her as she was growing up. And now it's helping her family weather an economic tsunami. Her husband, Dave, was laid off from his job more than two months ago.

The Ponds, who have three children, ages 3 to 8, are among a growing number of people worried by a combination of world events, natural disasters and economic chaos who have been preparing for just such a crisis.

Words like "food storage" and "emergency preparedness" roll off the tongue in Utah, where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long proclaimed the importance of being capable of self-reliance in an emergency. Church leaders have been among the most vocal advocates, counseling their congregations to stockpile food and other supplies. And they're not the only practitioners.

Mother Nature and the global economy each have offered their own testimonial recently.

"I was raised that way, but even though I've been working on it for several years, what happened in Haiti, in Chile, the economy and job losses, it all makes you more aware," Pond said.

The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Craig Fugate, told the American Red Cross that everyone should be ready for a disaster. A recent poll of New York City residents found that about half are now thinking about preparedness, compared with 18 percent who were considering it in 2004. And increasingly there are associations of and websites for so-called "preppers."

Earthquakes and economic meltdowns have made the need more "believable," said Emergency Essentials co-owner Don Pectol, who has seen an uptick in interest in emergency preparedness.

The problem, Pectol notes, is that money and time are both tight. While desire is higher, it might not be as easy to accomplish in this economy. And those who are not at all prepared for an emergency feel like "they're being asked to eat an elephant."

When people ask him how to get started without breaking the bank, Pectol says to nibble the elephant. Get a little more of what they're eating already. Make it part of the budget, like the electric bill. And chip away at it.

"I believe in the principle that if you do small and simple things, great things come to pass," he said.