Many of you have undoubtedly heard or read about the recent snow storm in the Mid-Atlantic and Eastern part of the U.S. that fouled up a number of heavily traveled highways and caused many motorists to be stuck in their cars overnight with below-freezing temperatures.
Waiting in the frigid weather for the roads to be cleared, many of these folk intermittently started their engines and ran their heaters in an attempt to keep warm. Of course they had to be careful not to burn too much gasoline … which meant the benefits were often short-lived.
However, above and beyond keeping warm, some of these motorists (especially those with children) had an even bigger concern. They had no food or water.
While snow storms may not be a problem where you live, there are other conditions/hazards — flooded roads, downed trees, accidents, etc. — that can create serious delays in one’s travels. In most instances, such obstructions are cleared within a few hours and you’re able to continue on your way. However, there are no guarantees since each predicament is different. You could very easily be stuck for an extended period of time.
This is why it’s vitally important that you always carry food and water in your car.
It doesn’t need to be any more than a couple of protein bars and two to three bottles of water per person, but every individual that drives a car should have some type of food and water available in case of emergency. PLUS, if you take scheduled medication, I’m sure you recognize how important it is to carry an extra dose with you at all times.
Further, in the wintertime, it never hurts to throw in an extra jacket or sweatshirt (maybe even a blanket). Just in case.
Life is unpredictable. We never know what’s just around the corner. For our own sake and for those we care about, it’s always a good idea to Be Prepared.
P.S. If I’m preaching to the choir, all the better. But if you’re someone that hasn’t given much thought to these extra precautions, perhaps it’s time you did.
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Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay
Nan's Notebook 
When I was still driving I always carried water and chocolate bars in my car all winter. Also some blankets for warmth, as well as candles and matches with a safety glass to keep the candle from turning over. It could be lit for short lengths of time but with WINDOW OPENED an inch or so for oxygen. And I learned that Windex would melt the ice buildup on the doors and windows when I thought i was going to be locked out of my car by the ice buildup and the only thing that would open with my key was the trunk, where I found the bottle of Windex still unfrozen. That same night I found the bag of kitty litter in my car would give me enough traction to get up the ice covered bump into my driveway. I had left the litter in the car a week before when I had too much to carry in the house in one trip. Lucky find when stranded with two wheels on the drive and two sticking out in the street. I don’t know much about the cars today since having to stop driving several years ago, but these are some of the things I kept while working as a home health aide for Hospice.
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I’m impressed! And thanks for the tip about Windex! I wonder how many people know this. Even though today’s cars have lots of “safety features,” there are still conditions where you need common sense and quick thinking.
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I’m a firm believer in being prepared for whatever happens. Living in Kentucky — or my part of KY, we usually get ice rather than snow and that makes driving conditions worse than snow. The discovery about Windex was lucky. If it hadn’t been in my trunk I would never have known it would melt three inch buildup of ice on the door of the car as well as what was on the windows. That;s one they should advertise though, Gets the windshield clean at the same time!
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I buy supplies for my long journeys because our roads have a knack for strange jams especially during peak travel. People have found themselves in traffic for longer than 12 hours. So this here is good advice.
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I’m from Buffalo. This kind of thing is old hat. Of course, we handle the snow better than anywhere else in the country, except maybe Rochester or Syracuse. It’s a competition every year … who gets the most snow.
I don’t even drive anymore but my backpack always has a sandwich & a bottle of water before I leave the house. You never know what’s going to happen.
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“You never know what’s going to happen.” Wise words indeed. Being prepared for those “unknowns” is the whole point of my post. 🙂
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What’s snow?
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That situation over there is seriously scary. Here in Wisconsin we’re used to stuff like that, but those poor people almost never have to deal with significant amounts of ice and snow and they don’t have the equipment and experience needed to be ready for it.
Almost everyone up here carries some kind of emergency kit in their car just in case. I even have one for my bicycle that has tools and equipment for minor repairs and fixing tires and a small first aid kit.
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The thing that everyone needs to realize is that snow and/or ice aren’t the only things that can strand a motorist. As I mentioned in my post, there are other calamities that can stop drivers — literally — in their tracks. And while most of these delays are short-lived, there are no guarantees.
Good thinking related to your bicycle traveling!
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And it’s not just that we’re not used it it here in Virginia. When it’s really cold up north, you have light powdery snow that is more easily pushed out of the way, and snowblowers are more useful. Here, where it will snow when the temperature is just barely freezing, what we got was a sudden 8-10 inches of wet glop. It’s heavy, it clumps, it sticks to everything. It breaks branches and knocks down trees that take out power lines. You can’t blow it, it’s hard to shovel, and It melts into slushpiles duing the day which then freeze into solid ice overnight.
Yet, some winters we get no snow at all. Which makes getting people to prepare for the occasional storm that much harder.
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Exactly – that heavy, wet snow/slush is horrible to have to deal with. It can easily throw a car or truck right off the road if you get caught up in it the wrong way. And then at night the stuff freezes solid making it impossible to remove it. We got about 10 inches of that a few years ago before I retired from the school district. Our big F-250 plow trucks couldn’t budge the stuff. We had to hire an earth moving company to come in with a massive front end loaders to clean the parking lots.
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I haven’t had a car in ages, so it is just a bit hard for me to carry any extra food, or drink when I travel. On the other hand, in all my life I have never ever heard that snowstorms stopped traffic here in Finland. We have snowstorms every now and then, but we also have obligatory winter wheels with rivets under our cars here and the public service snowploughing units are very efficient (and big). Some accidents do happen every winter and we are used to laugh at the headlines of how “winter surpriced the motorists” that appear every year as the winter comes, but that only refers to how people skid on the icy roads with their cars and mostly it is about superficial damage to the cars.
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I used to carry cat litter, a shovel, a large piece of heavy cardboard, a blanket, and some sardines in my car at all times, when I lived in NH.
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