September is National Preparedness Month. Over the next 30 days, we are encouraged to think about how to prepare for emergencies. While these may be situations that we cannot control, we can certainly prepare for them.

Most of us don’t think about emergency preparedness regularly. Most days we follow a regular routine. But emergency preparedness helps us most on the bad days that we can’t predict: the day when a natural disaster hits harder than expected, or when a candle falls over and starts a house fire, or when a winter storm knocks out power for a few days.