Get Off Her Ass, Already

For some reason, a bunch of bloggers are beating up on this poor woman. But I'm betting we've got more canned green beans, carrots and peach preserves than she does.

Maybe.

July 31, 2008

She’s Ready: Just Add Water

By STEVEN KURUTZ

Cummington, Mass.

ONE Friday afternoon a few weeks ago, as cable news channels carried bulletins that two government-sponsored mortgage lenders might go bankrupt, Kathy Harrison stood in the kitchen of her two-story, 19th-century farmhouse here, about 20 miles northwest of Northampton, laying out herbs from the garden.

With commentators throwing around phrases like “mortgage meltdown” and “peak oil,” the American economy seemed, at least to some, at the edge of an abyss, but all was calm in the Harrison household. Two loaves of bread, baked fresh that morning, sat on the counter. Mrs. Harrison’s daughters, Karen, 14, and Phoebe, 5, were laughing and playing dress-up, while her husband, Bruce, 62, stood at his wife’s side.

Plenty of Americans, to be sure, have kept their cool in the face of the recent crises, believing that troubles bubbling up around them will not, in the end, be all that severe; or will not touch their own lives in a significant way; or, if they are and if they do — well, that’s a bridge to cross later. The obvious peace of mind in the Harrison household is of a different order, and has something to do with the provisions Mrs. Harrison has stockpiled throughout the house, which include cans of powdered milk; several hundred pounds of wheat berry, oats, flour and rice; water purification tablets; shelves of toothpaste and toilet paper; a solar oven; packs of hermetically sealed seeds; and other items to sustain the family in an emergency.

Mrs. Harrison believes in home preparedness, and after readying her own home for a worst-case scenario — be it a flood or a nuclear or bioterrorist attack — she has written a book, “Just in Case: How to Be Self-Sufficient When the Unexpected Happens” (Storey Publishing, $16.95), to help others do the same.

Written in the information-rich style of a manual, the book is full of practical tips. What affordable bedding preserves heat best? PrimaLoft comforters, according to Mrs. Harrison’s informal tests. What company makes “the Cadillac of nonelectric lamps,” using kerosene? Aladdin, Mrs. Harrison notes.

Her wisdom is delivered in a tone of pioneer optimism. “In a time of crisis you want to start the day with a good breakfast,” she writes, introducing a recipe for something called cornmeal mush. The book, which draws on Mrs. Harrison’s wide reading in the literature of preparedness, as well as books on narrower subjects like canning, cheesemaking and felling trees, is notable for discussing what to do in the event of a chemical attack without detouring into panic-mongering territory.

“I don’t expect someone to drop a nuke on me,” said Mrs. Harrison, 56, an energetic and upbeat woman who calls herself a prepper rather than a doomer. “But after 9/11 — and certainly after Hurricane Katrina — I realized that, holy smoke, the cavalry doesn’t always charge in to rescue you.”