How safe is safe? Last year Hurricane Charley barely missed us as we sat out the hurricane in our high-rise apartment. We breathed a sigh of relief as it passed us by, but then our problems started. The lights were off for a week and so was our lifestyle.

Charley taught us lots of lessons about survival in a primitive world bereft of electricity. We are soooo dependent upon the power company. Charley made us go back to basics, like opening a can without an electric can opener, or entertaining ourselves in the dark without the light from the television on. We are all just big babies when the electricity is turned off in our lives.

When the local government orders a mandatory evacuation, as it did with Wilma, the big question was: Should we go, or stay and tough it out? If we decided to go we had to figure out what to take with us. Friends who left town packed up their important papers and photographs of their kids and other relatives to take with them.

I have my belly bag with my credit cards and driver's license always with me. But what about all the other papers, like wills and insurance stuff?

I'm a saver. I live with chaos. My desk is witness to my inability to file anything. Everything is piled high. My important papers are somewhere in the pile, but going through it to find them is weary work. It would also make me feel guilty about being such a slob. So, taking my "important" papers, except for those in my belly bag, is definitely out. That leaves photographs and picking out what photos I treasure most to take along with us. Now that would be an awesome job.

Digital cameras are great because you can take myriad photos for free. But if you don't select those shots worth saving out of each photo adventure you can end up with thousands of photos taking up space on your computer. That's my story. I mean to do it, but I just never get around to taking those photos out of my computer and putting them on CDs. So I have collected all those photos I've been taking since the first digital cameras arrived several years ago. Then there are tons of earlier photos I've got stashed in boxes in every closet in the house.

So how could we leave when I couldn't even pick out some photos to take? Just thinking about packing up and not knowing for how long and where we can go with all our stuff was enough to discourage us from leaving. Then there was all that food in the fridge that would be spoiled if the electricity went out and we weren't here to eat it.

It was a revelation to discover during our Charley blackout that toilets don't automatically fill up after use. They need a pump to push the water into the tank and that pump works on electricity. I filled every container in the house with water so we'd be able to manually fill the toilet tank. Self-sufficiency is a gratifying feeling.

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