Over the past two weeks we’ve seen the many stories about yet another deadly tornado in the Midwest, but it was in the aftermath of the Moore, Okla. tornado that the issue raised was the matter of preparedness.

Out there in the flatlands of Oklahoma or the rolling hills of Kansas, tornado victims often don’t have too much time to prepare for the natural disaster that could potentially uproot everything a person owns and/or violently take a life in the process. Sometimes it’s just a matter of minutes between the sighting of the 200 mph monster and its arrival on a doorstep.

Not so with hurricanes. We get our watches days in advance and while we go on with our daily lives, with one eye glued to the weather forecast, we have plenty of time to make those trips to the grocery store, to the hardware store, to the bank or anywhere else we need to go before our monster arrives on the doorstep.

But we often don’t take advantage of that time we’re given. Yes, it’s easy to pick up a few gallons of water, bread, milk and what have you and plan to wait out the storm. But that’s not really being prepared for a hurricane. Being prepared means, at the very minimum, putting together a basic disaster supplies kit.

Take advantage of time you’re given. Be prepared this hurricane season.