Preparing for Disaster

(image credit)
Natural disasters are a part of life in this world. The recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan are a good reminder that life can change in an instant, and it's got me thinking (and taking some inventory).

How prepared are we in the face of something similar?

*We have some basic first aid supplies, but probably not as much as we should have.
*We only have, at most, a one month supply of all our prescription medications at any given time.
*We have quite a bit of dry goods like beans and rice, as well as some canned food, but not a lot.
*We only have one case of bottled water. Normally I don't even buy bottled water, but I picked one up just so we'd have some on hand. If our water was shut off for any reason, we would be ill-prepared.
*Likewise, how would we cook all those beans and rice if the power were out for a significant amount of time? The fact is, we couldn't. We have a little propane stove, but no more than a couple of small fuel cans for it. And we'd also need a good amount of water to cook dry goods.
*We use cloth for pretty much everything, but how in the world would we wash it? Perhaps collect rainwater? After all, we do have a lot of it around here!

So, how prepared are you? Do you have a few days' worth of food and water? A month or two? Or, like some people, even a year? What do you keep on hand? How do you store it? I'd love to hear more thoughts on this.