As mentioned in the previous post…I was in Rhode Island when Hurricane (or Tropical Storm, as she became by the time she actually landed on RI) Irene hit. We knew she was coming and, technically, we were in a mandatory evacuation zone. We chose not to evacuate. The good news is this ended up being fine. Not really the point of my post, though.

Over the past few years (decade? few decades?) my church has been talking about emergency preparedness (ETA: it’s actually been something like 75 years). But when an actual emergency is imminent, suddenly all this stuff that’s just been words and theories becomes very real. Suddenly the crank flashlight/radio my grandma gave me for Christmas (the one that I kind of rolled my eyes at) became the best gift ever known to man. Especially when I realized that I had never purchased batteries for my Maglite and every store was out of D batteries (epic fail on the parts of Energizer and Duracell if you ask me).

And then there’s the case of the iPhone. I had actually been thinking about this the other day, when I pulled up a map on my phone for the 20th time that day. What if the world was really ending? What if I actually needed a real map, you know, the kind on paper that does disappear when the power goes out and I couldn’t recharge my cell phone?

And then, with Hurricane Irene, these what ifs became very real questions and they led to more questions. What am I going to do if I need money and can’t pull it out of the bank because ATMs are no long operational? What if I need to call someone on a non-digital land line (do those even exist anymore?) and I can’t because I don’t know any phone numbers…well, almost. And what if I wasn’t in Rhode Island with all of these people who are much better prepared than I am and I hadn’t realized how much water I needed? Or food? Or realized that when power leaves, so does your water because electricity runs the pumps. And so on and so forth.

The point? I am completely and totally dependent on technology. I mean, I could survive (physically) without it, assuming I had a source of food and water, but that would be it. The world has automated and electrified so much of my life that I don’t really have to “know” a lot of stuff I used to have to know…like how to get from point A to point B without Google Maps.

Now, this is not some sort of post about how I’m going to turn over a new leaf and be less reliant on technology. I’m not a crazy person. But maybe I will go purchase myself an atlas and maybe I’ll write down important phone numbers on a piece of paper and put it in a ziplock back…and perhaps I’ll even start saving putting some cash away for a rainy day (you know, the kind of rain that comes with hurricanes).