Is Your Family Prepared?
July 9, 2011
Potomac, Md
By: Naomi Bloch
First of all, I sincerely hope that you and your family came through the recent storm with minimal inconvenience. If you, your friends, family and neighbors didn’t, I hope you have already begun to think about the critical importance of having a family emergency plan in place, even those of you that did not lose power.
Speaking for myself, and this may also be true for many of you, we still have not made a plan, though we have talked about it for quite sometime now. Losing our power for 48 hours only brought this lack of an actual emergency plan front and center for me.
What really made me think that this cannot be overlooked any longer was that our oldest daughter’s townhouse, in Silver Spring, had a very large tree branch fall on her roof, which created a concussion impact that brought down the ceiling in her bedroom.
The room currently looks like a “mini-9/11”. Everything is covered in a gray dust that is God-knows-what. Fortunately, we have a spare bedroom so she and her two kitties are able to bunk with us until all of this can be fully sorted out. An advantage that many others might not have.
As a mother, I have to say that when a child of yours comes this close to genuine disaster it is a motivator like none other. When you are forced to face the reality of “what if”, you can no longer put off having an emergency plan in place.
This is especially relevant since nowadays because we have to agree that these “weather events” (A.K.A. – Climate Change) are only going to become more frequent and more debilitating in the years ahead. Seeing first hand that the various emergency response teams will be clearly overwhelmed means that you and yours will be on your own for what could be several days before any outside help arrives.
In these past few days, since our power came back, I have been searching the local, state, and federal government websites for just exactly what should go into a solid emergency plan.
I also have been thinking that this sort of project might actually get done easier if there are family, friends and/or neighbors you could team up with and make this a team effort! We all have hectic lives and my concern is that all of us have the natural tendency to forget the seriousness of following through regarding a plan as our lives quickly return to normal.
I found a few good websites that I wanted to share with all of you as we each ferret out the various elements for assembling our own personal emergency kits.
http://www.redcrossstore.org/shopper/prodlist.aspx?LocationId=107&gclid=CJ60haXhhbECFYFo4Aod0CshKQ
http://www6.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/frs-safe/resources/index.asp
http://www.ready.gov/are-you-ready-guide/
http://www.emd.wa.gov/about/documents/Business_ShelterInPlaceAtYourOffice.pdf
I would really love to hear what you and your family, your schools and places of employment are doing, or have already done to be prepared.
Let us help each other to better be able to help our own families and community members the next time some unforeseen disaster strikes.
Let the planning begin!