I'm a planner. But preparing for 20 inches of snow with two toddlers is quite another story.

The Great Blizzard of 2010 was an excellent wakeup call. It's time to formulate a disaster plan for my family.

I've been looking at ready.gov, the government's disaster preparedness website, which recommends a three-pronged approach. First: put together a disaster kit. Second: make a plan, and third, stayi informed. I have a tendency to stockpile, which drives my husband and home organizer up the wall. 

I do not keep my disaster kit in one location since we don't have enough storage space to accommodate it all, a common problem in Hoboken. Instead, I maintain a two-week supply of canned goods and dried fruit in our pantry, and have bottled water stacked in a large kitchen cupboard and in a corner of the den (my husband is oh-so-thrilled about that).

I have a large waterproof duffel bag in the corner of the master bedroom stocked with hand-crank flashlights, a first aid kit, and other disaster necessities. I keep cash in our safe, so I estimate it would take me about fifteen minutes to pull together all the elements of our disaster kit.

I also went a bit further than the disaster recommendations on ready.gov; I came up with plans for pet disaster preparedness (rescue alert stickers are a necessity) and electronic file storage. I may not have time to grab my laptop in an emergency, but I maintain several self-powered 1 terrabyte flash drives with all our critical household and work files. I plan to stick a flash drive along with our camera and laptop into one of the inexpensive lightweight waterproof duffles I keep handy (after all, Hoboken is located in a flood zone, and they are great for beach trips).

I try to use my disaster food supplies and replenish them. The stuff I buy is geared toward everyday living (i.e. I buy 8 oz water bottles rather than 1 gallon jugs). Even non-perishable food has expiration dates, so you can't put together a kit and leave it under the bed for five years. I recommend keeping the food elements more accessible and checking the kit once a year to update the contents (I include clothes several sizes larger than my kids' current sizes but it still needs to be replaced periodically).

There is a limit to the amount of disaster planning I can do in a small urban apartment, but blizzards, blackouts and hurricanes do occur every few years. Now that I have children, I owe it to them to make sure they are fed and cared for even under extenuating circumstances.

And, in case you didn't know, there's snow underway for this weekend.

To read more about what makes Kathy Zucker tick, check out her blog at http://hobokenmomcondo.com/momblog and follow her at http://twitter.com/kathyzucker