Can you survive without electricity?  For me, the answer is 'not very well'.  During the heavy rains this past month, my home lost power at 5 am one wet morning and it didn't come back on until 4 pm.  Eleven hours with no electricity on a dark and overcast day is a very long time when you're ill-prepared.

And, as embarrassing as this is to admit, not only were the batteries in my flashlight dead, but I couldn't initially locate the release lever for the garage door because it wasn't where I expected it to be (and trying to find it in the dark was a challenge).  As my faithful readers know, I just moved into this home in November and had no idea where the circuit breaker panel was or, for that matter, the utility meters.  Worse, it never even crossed my mind to find out until the power went out.

So, as I sat looking around at my inoperable home, I thought: "what if this had been an earthquake?"  We tend to get complacent about the fact the ground moves here, even though the recent tragedy in Haiti should be a stark reminder.  True, we have better building codes than Haiti but our homes are built on sand too and liquefaction is a real and true potential for extreme damage.

As someone who lived within 10 miles of the epicenter of the 1994 Northridge earthquake, I can tell you that even here, where we're fairly well built and most construction is single story, factors like magnitude, depth, duration and seismic path can level even the sturdiest structures.

So despite my previous experience, I was unprepared to be without electricity for even a day, much less the week or more you can endure during a serious disaster.  We're all familiar with the guidelines for keeping water and non-perishable foodstuffs and having an emergency preparedness plan, but here is a common sense checklist just in case you're like me and need a reminder about the little things: