Free Enduring the Crisis by K.D. Kinney

She pressed on her temples.
    “Tammy, do you have any words of advice?” One of Ben’s friends asked when there was some awkward silence.
    “Umm, sorry, I’ve been a little rattled by all this myself. My main suggestion is to find ways to preserve what you have in your freezers or fridges. Like fruit or meats. You need to find a way to preserve them without them spoiling. I’m working on canning most of my meat. Creating jerky out of some of it is pretty easy. I am also dehydrating fruit. You really want to ration batteries in your flashlights or lanterns, unless you have hundreds stockpiled. Some of the really cheap solar lights didn’t fry during the event so if you were lucky to have some that still work, after they charge during the day, they’ll offer some light indoors for hours. Make sure you have your 72 hour kits packed in a backpack and keep them handy. If you haven’t made one yet, get it together now just in case you have to leave in a hurry. Like the officer said, they can’t put out the fires and Amanda witnessed an entire block burning on her way home.”
    People started to murmur again. Tammy didn’t know what else to share because if she told them anything else, it would stress them all out even more. The police officer gave them such a filtered down, basic version of what was happening. That must be a tactic to keep everyone from panicking. Obviously she was still very preoccupied as she let the murmuring end her turn addressing the crowd. Usually she needed note cards when speaking in front of large groups to keep track of all her thoughts. What she shared were only the basics, things many of them already knew. From her experience with teaching over the years, people had a tendency to forget some of the most common sense things when everything around them falls apart. She also knew it was too late and totally pointless to teach them about preparedness after the fact.
    The only new bits of information given at the meeting had come from the police officer and Tammy had no idea how much she missed. Other than that, after she spoke they took notes on who wasn’t home yet and who was in need of assistance. Several of the empty nester couples volunteered to assist the elderly widows. By the time the meeting was over, there was a bit of a safety net in place for everyone. Tammy stayed silent after her lousy information sharing moment.
    The bishop asked to talk to her once it was over and people were heading out.
    “How prepared are you? I know you guys had a rough patch over the winter.” He folded his arms and rubbed his chin as if he was running a hundred lists through his head at once.
    “We’re good actually. We’ve recovered quite well.”
    “How about safety though, with Ben gone and you home alone with all the girls? I heard it was a little scary around your house.”
    “It has been eventful. I’ve had to fend off a few crazies but we’re all safe. The dog got a boot to his rib but he’ll recover.”
    “I didn’t want to draw attention to you at the meeting. So, I hate to ask this but I know you are the most prepared out of all of us here. Are you able to assist with any food donations? We expect the distribution center to help us but with transportation lacking, the massive scale of trying to get it distributed to everyone in town, I doubt we’ll get it early enough.”
    Tammy started to wring her hands again and forced herself to stop. “I do actually. That was something Ben made sure we had was something to donate to others during a crisis. How soon do you need it? There are still some creepy characters hanging around. It’s making me nervous. I don’t want them to catch on I have anything they might want.” They already wanted Old Betsy and Charlie. She didn’t want to give them more reasons to crash her house yet again.
    “Several men will come over to collect it. We’ll be discreet so you don’t have to worry about looting. Probably early tomorrow morning. You’re