A scary, and lucky, mistake in preps.

We went on vacation recently, and were gone for a few days. When we got home, I went to wash laundry from the trip in the basement. At this time, I noticed that there was one of my cast iron pots on the ground with the lid laying next to it. This seemed odd as I don’t tend to leave my cast iron pot on the ground. As I picked it up, I realized why it was sitting on the ground. To my horror, one of my prepping shelves collapsed.

I saw rice and broken glass on the ground. I also saw a lot of stuff under the shelves and boxes that was scary to see. Jars of meats, rice, beans and canned vegetable all tipped over. I had to pick up everything to see what was lost. Luckily, while picking up everything that collapsed, we only lost one jar of rice.

There were some dented cans of potatoes which jumped the line and are now moved into our pantry area. The mason jars of meats surprised me as there were a few that were 10 feet away from the shelf but were still safe. This incident was 100% my fault, and not even just an accident. I knew better that to use plastic shelves to support the weight of these preps.

However, this is what I had, and therefore this is what I used. We got lucky with a 1 jar loss by a shelf collapse. We will be upgrading our shelves, whether building if wood drops soon or purchasing metal shelves. I will even by looking at places like craigslist for shelving units. We will find some shelves and pick them up. Until then, we have moved our preps off the higher shelves. Stay safe and stay prepared.