Natural Disasters Happens and You Have an Ostomy

Natural Disasters

Lately I’ve been thinking about how to prepare when a Natural Disasters Happens and You Have an Ostomy. Recently we’ve have Hurricane Harvey hit Houston area and leaving people wading through chest deep waters. There’s been Hurricane in Porto Rico and Florida, Hurricane Nate in Mississippi, forest fires raging across the mid-west to name just a few.

Living in southern Louisiana, we’ve watched closely as 3 hurricanes entered the Gulf this year. Personally I’ve been traveling out of state and experienced one blow out after another. Days before we were to head home, is not only had horrible skin burns but also had run out of supplies. My husband spent hours searching for baseplates then had to drive 90 minutes each way to get them. It was not only stressful for both of us, plus we’d lost a day of our vacation.

Agreeing that would never happen again, we keep a stash of emergency supplies. Last year we were thankful for that stash when my Dad suddenly passed away and we had to quickly travel to Canada for 10 days.

The question for me has always been, how many supplies do are need for back up? In my case, we’ve decided that number is 20 complete changes plus an extra box of bags.

What if the only way to safety is wading through deep, dirty water? How can we waterproof supplies, that’s easy to transport through water? Is special cleaning required to our stoma area to assure no bacteria infections? What if we evacuate but without supplies? Where can we get medical supplies in a natural disaster? In many situations Fed Ex can’t get in to make deliveries.