Storm Captain

James S. - Grand Island

When I married my wife, my step-son, Preston was deathly afraid of storms. I told him as an investigative young man of 7 years old we should do some research. He proceeded to do hours of research about emergency preparedness and took on the job of building a kit and creating a plan.  

Knowing I had been in the army he gave me a list of items: MRE's, flashlights, matches, chem lights, water, blankets, can openers, canned goods, Swiss army knife, tool kits, batteries, hand crank radios, and weather radio's. The list went on and on. I got everything on the list with a surplus. He made kits out of my old foot locker, and old tool boxes.  He placed the big kit in our basement, put mini kits in the cars (he changes items seasonally).  He was the most prepared kid there was.

That year we had our first storm warning. Preston (the good little storm captain) got us all in the basement and had his kit out. He was ready! He had us call "Nan"(grandma) to make sure she was in her shelter with the kit he had made her.  He is no longer afraid of storms. He is our storm captain. He hates me to tell this story now that he is all of 14.  But I tell him being prepared calmed him, and will calm others.