I think it's quite prudent to plan for a rainy day and to have ample supplies on hand to survive.
About 12 years ago, most of your kids were still in elementary, there was a thing called Y2K coming up. Back then I read a book called Timebomb2000 by Ed Yourdon which touched on how dependent and interconnected society has become. If the power goes out for longer then 3 days it's estimated that there would be the first serious cases of civil unrest. 7 days it could get ugly. 14-30 days let's not even consider it on a national level...
Back then there was a bulletin board which became a hub for folks to exchange advice and the board was archived and kept online since it has a lot of timeless information in it.
Year 2000 Preparation Archive Top Level (Even though it says only one message - go a level beneath it for all of the goodness) Tons of stuff about what vet medications/antibiotics are cheaply available and exact same as what they give humans, etc. etc.
Thank god nothing happened at the time and over the next year my wife and I saved a lot of money, eating home cooked meals and our local food bank loved us. Funny story, around 2003 I was going to give away an old suit of mine. Luckily we went through the pockets before donating it and found about $1,500 in cash that we had stashed away and forgotten about. (Still can't believe that I didn't remember that money).
After Y2K came the bulletin board morphed somewhat and became a hub for folks worried about alien abductions, earth changes and solar events, illegal immigration etc. however some of the info exchanged there is still quite good:
Timebomb2000
Here are a couple of properties/hidouts I can suggest:
Zombie proof house:
Listed: MSN Real Estate's daily blog - MSN Real Estate
Survival Realty:
San Juan Retreat (Colorado) - SurvivalRealty.com
One of the funnest books on this topic I read was "Emergency" by Neil Strauss (author of the game): [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Emergency-This-Book-Will-Save/dp/0060898771]Amazon.com: Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life (9780060898779): Neil Strauss: Books[/ame]
He goes out to try to figure out what to do to survive when TSHTF etc.. Great book with an even better ending.
Make sure you have PRINTED copies of SAS/U.S. Army survival manuals, How to manuals on gardening, bread baking, First Aid, Advanced nursing books, etc. etc.. Some of the book around the 1920's, 30's etc. that show you how to do stuff from scratch are 'really' useful.
Hope this helps...