That is the issue. How much do you prepare for?
There are all kinds of constraints on how much you can prepare for: money, space, time, and so on. That is just real life.
But one of the most important things is to go through the process of planning what to do; implement you can do and keep the other plans around so you can go back to them and implement them if necessary.
Keep a disaster plan notebook.
If you are watching the news or one of those disaster documentaries spend a second to write down what the disaster was and how it might impact your home, work, school and city. Jot down a couple of notes about how you would respond. And if you believe you need a key piece of equipment or knowledge write that down too and add it to your shopping list.
You'll want to go through that notebook from time to time and flesh out those response plans. Usually the first thing that pops into your mind for a disaster response is the same thing that everyone else is going to think of too. Spend a little time thinking of a different, less obvious way to survive.
For example, when a big storm is coming most people run to the supermarkets and they end up stripped of bottled water, milk, bread, batteries, &etc. I've noticed that my local home improvement stores tend to have pallets of water and energy drinks. My local office stores tend to have bulk boxes of snack foods, not great but better then nothing. So there are options out there, if you take the time to notice them.
Creating your own disaster response plan notebook allows you the time to notice useful things before things get bad.
