I agree that families should do all in their power to prepare for unforeseen emergencies.   Many in the media have provided some good thoughts on battling our perceptions concerning cost and space barriers to food storage and emergency preparation. 

However, I have read that some believe that those barriers aloan are the cause for individuals and families not to be prepared, and that every family should be able to easily afford as "little" as $600 a year for their emergency preparedness.  I disagree with the implication that everyone can afford $600 a year (or $50 a month) to put towards food storage.  Certainly many of us can, but what about those in poverty, or at least on an already over-stretched fixed budget?  For them it is not simply a matter of tightening the belt a bit to squeeze out an extra $50 a month.  The money is often simply not there. 

The problem is that when disasters happen, it is often the poorer neighborhoods and communities that take the brunt of it (for example, the flood damage in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina was disproportionately in poor and impoverished neighborhoods) and we all can remember how ineffective government response to the disaster was.  Furthermore, who was it that did not get needed assistance in a timely manner?  It was largely the poor.
            Therefore, we can talk about how important it is to prepare ourselves and our families for disasters and that we cannot or should not rely on the government to bail us out, and I would largely agree with that, given my personally situation.  However, we cannot make those kinds of blanket statements for everyone and imply that if others “fail” to prepare, that it is their fault.  In addition, we should expect the government to step in and provide timely and efficient aid in those situations.  That is one of the reasons we pay taxes, and we cannot forget that we need to hold the government accountable too.