Being Prepared For Food Emergencies, Good Deal For Food Storage?

Being Prepared For Food Emergencies-
Last month was National Emergency Preparedness Month. I've been thru earthquakes in S. California, and ice storms that left me without power for 3 days with no heat. As with any emergency, whatever it might be, it's PLANNING AHEAD that counts. We've been hit with various financial emergencies due to medical situations. I don't have the storage room for huge amounts of home canned food, or the room to grow everything we eat in this climate. I randomly look around for possible dried foods to buy to store. Some you can eat as needed, some might be for real emergency use only. With fuel prices up produce is going up some here too. Fresh is always best, but then there's the spoilage issue. I see many "mainstream" folks who blog still only relying on going to the grocery store, period. Those people really worry me as to their long-term situation. While I'm not a gloom and doomer hoarding food and shotguns, it's good to be realistic. One blizzard here could cut off the highways to grocery trucks that deliver. The stores would be empty fast. Ditto any other closure to the highways. Ditto quakes, while we're not at high risk stuff happens. And usually when you least expect it. That's why it becomes an "emergency". Well, duh. Anyway, this got me looking at me email from Costco today....

Good Deal For Food Storage?-
Anyone have any ideas about these items? Cost ration compared to what you've seen? I know some people rely just on local foods, but in my climate that's pretty limiting (unless I want just taters all winter). I will add- I know some people prefer dried to freeze-dried due to the texture, etc. There's lots of philosophies on which is better, but it does get down to what you can buy, will eat and will store for you, in your circumstances. That's really the bottom line, for me at least.

                                      
                                             Freeze Dried Fruit Bucket

                                      
                                              Freeze Dried Veggie Bucket

Having our own fresh eggs, dried eggs, dried milk & butter  for long term storage, I'm mostly looking for fruits and veggies. My freezer is full right now, but if we lost power for a while, that would be gone...There is our regular pantry food, but that varies as far as shelf life.

                                 

Other Things To Think About-
And then there's other things to store, WATER being a BIG one for me, as we live in the city in a "high desert". I do know where to go locally for open water, IF I could get there and it wasn't frozen. When I see some people in highly dense urban areas who have NO water stored, not even a couple of cheap gallons I shake my head. You can go without food for  a while, but not WATER. Our two 55 gallon rain barrels are full now, and we have a good water filter to use with those. If they were frozen and we needed those that would be exciting :(  I do have several gallon water jugs stored and am going to buy more going into winter.... It's cheap when you don't need them :)


Some good additional info here, Ready.gov , the Red Cross and others have some too.