Be Safe
Monday, November 5, 2007
Emergency preparedness trends to shelter in place very disturbing and unwise.
Friday, November 2, 2007
What are your hurricane preparedness plan for Noel ?
Hurricane Noel is a late arrival in the hurricane season but still a Category 1 storm. It is a serious storm in that it ahs killed over 64 people in the Dominican Republic and Haiti this week. Over 37,500 have had to evacuate their homes. Many will struggle for weeks and months with flood and mud-slide issues. Full hurricane recovery will take much longer and for those who have had a loved one die the grief recovery will be a lifetime.
COMMENTS WELCOMED!
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Hurricane Preparedness is NEVER OVER!
And we thought hurricane season was over!
We are about 10 days from the official end of hurricane season. So now Noel is going to do her stuff? I have no idea if Noel will become a hurricane or not. What I do know is that any potential storm can have significant threat to life, home and business.
I commend you for reading this blog. It means that you are interested in obtaining wise disaster preparedness information for a number of resources. Good for you. The more prepared we are for a hurricane the more prepared we will be for frankly any kind f a disaster. Emergency preparedness tips can be so helpful when facing a disaster situation.
So keep an ear out for more information on Noel and don’t forget to review your emergency preparedness checklist, disaster kits and update your emergency preparedness plans as well as your disaster recovery plans on November 6th!
COMMENTS WELCOMED!
All I ask is that everyone be respectful and sensitive of each other and that identifying information about a person who is not the author be limited to protect their privacy.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Great emergency preparedness tips on evacuation – a MUST read!
Emergency preparedness evacuation video excellent
COMMENTS WELCOMED!
10 Ways to help you pet when you and pet returns home after an evacuation
Home sweet home after an evacuation.
- When returning home, make sure the housing environment is as calm as possible. Animals gather their information not just from words spoken since they have a limited vocabulary understanding. They pick up signals from the sounds around them. So the more calm the setting the better for the adjustment.
- Ensure that your pet is safe and unable to escape your home when you are unloading the car or bring in bags of groceries. Pets are going to be very excitable and may dart from the home and into danger on the street or not be able to be found.
- Place your pet in a small safe room to help your pet acclimate them back to the home. Pets are very stressed in a disaster evacuation situation and may behave a bit unlike themselves when they return home. Keeping them in a limited area that they can freely explore safely will help to ground them before you let them have their usual and larger area to live in. This restrained location can be for an hour to a day depending on the stress condition of the pet.
- Restrict their food intake for the first couple of hours. They are going to be excitable and this may upset their digestive system. So to prevent any discomfort or upset, limit the food until they have adjusted better to their home setting again.
- Remember they don’t know what has happened or could have happened. The smells of the home and outdoors may be very different than what the yare use to so they will need so adjustment time.
- Some pets may have a bit of separation anxiety after the evacuation experience. This can be especially true when they were kenneled in a different location than ou. Be prepared for that and if possible leave a dirty / used a very smelly shirt, sock etc that will give comfort to them should you have to leave etc. It’s a good idea to have the item in the safe adjustment room as well.
- If the water has been very different at the evacuation site you were at compared to what you have now then you may want to reintroduce the different water gradually. Hopefully were you were able to bring some of the local water back with you. An example of this may be that you live in the city and have chlorinated water while you were staying in the country and the water there was from a well. If this is the case and your pet has a sensitive digestive system then start with 25% of the new water to 75% of he water you have brought back. Then over the course of the day gradually ad more of your water to the water bowl mix so over the next day or two the water becomes back to the ‘home formula’.
- Hopefully you have a regular schedule of your pet as to times for meals, walks etc. Try to re-establish that schedule as quickly as possible. A schedule is very important to maintain stability in your pet’s life. That way your pet can predict what is going to happen and when it will end. Follow your daily routine as pre-evacuation. That means if you play with your pet and take them to the dog park at 5:30pm every weekday, then continue to do the same routine, provided the area your go to is safe form emergency hazards. It is also good for you to stick with the schedule as well. It will be harmony to every one in the home.
- Before walking your pet or allowing it to go in the fenced back yard. Inspect the location for any dangerous items that may have resulted due to the emergency. There may be broken glass or nails or other ‘stuff’ that could harm your pet. Also double check that the area has no holes in the fencing or that the gates have been left open etc. Start with a short period of time for the pet to be outside. Be there with the pet at the beginning as a form of support. Then incrementally increase the amount of time that is allowed until they have built back up to their normal amount of outdoor time.
- Have some quite time with your pet the first evening back home before bedtime. This is a calming opportunity that settles the stress and strain of the evacuation event and helps re-bond you and your pet to the home setting again. Enjoy and relax, knowing all is well in your world of home.
WELCOME BACK HOME!
COMMENTS WELCOMED!
Monday, October 29, 2007
Emergency Preparedness is a good thing no matter what the age!
All I ask is that everyone be respectful and sensitive of each other and that identifying information about a person who is not the author be limited to protect their privacy.
Learn from wildfires for Hurricane Preparedness
Every disaster has lessons to be learned in emergency preparedness!
November 6th
Hurricane Preparedness Review Day
Do the following:
- Check Smoke Detectors
- Check and rotate your emergency preparedness necessities
- Review your emergency preparedness plans
- Complete your low cost emergency survival kits for home, work, school and car!
If everyone did these 5 simple things, you and your loved ones would be much safer should a disaster hit your home or community!
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
10 Ways Hurricane Preparedness and Diabetes Have A Lot In Common!
Here are 10 things that hurricanes and diabetes have in common:
- Both are able to be tested for.
It is now possible to get highly accurate information on the current status of a person’s blood sugar level as well as the intensity of a hurricane. The same is true for hurricanes, scientists know know the importance of geting drones and airplanes to fly into a hurricane to test and see just how significant the storm really is. By testing early and often in both cases, it helps to determine the best possible actions necessary to sustain a healthy life.
- Emergency preparedness necessities are a MUST!
It is important to have at least a 2-week supply of ALL necessities including all medical related products and medications, food, water and personal information. By being well prepared for a hurricane or other disaster, you will be much better to deal with most disaster situations including those associated with diabetes since your emergency preparedness necessities will already be established.
- Disaster preparedness information is essential to a more safe and comfortable disaster experience.
- Emergency preparedness checklist is a life saving item to have with you at all times!
No matter how many times you have been in a hurricane situation or in a diabetic emergency, it is very wise to have a emergency preapredness checklist to ensure that you have done all you can to address the situation. Better safe than sorry later!
- Every home, work-site and car should have an emergency preparedness kit
- Emergency preparedness does not have to be expensive.
Go to a thrift store and get a small in god condition back-pack or suitcase and use that as your home emergency survival kit. For the car get a plastic water tight container that can fit in the trunk of your car or under the car seat. For the office have a emergency preparedness kit that has a sturdy and easy to carry handle for ease in a get and go disaster situation in a employment setting.
Many items can be purchased at discount or dollar stores as well as online. Remember if you purchase an already packaged kit, that you really are paying for someone else to pick up supplies that you can do your self and for them to guess what it is that YOU need. Creating your own personal emergency preparedness kit ensures that your special needs are best considered. Hey an extra bonus is: it costs loads less!
- Hurricanes and diabetes affect people.
- Hurricanes and diabetes don’t have to be killers!
- More information is being learned about both hurricanes and diabetes every day.
In both cases it is not a death sentence or an anvil to carry around when trying to live a full, enjoyable and productive life. Information can help lift the vail of uncertainty and apprehension as well as deliver the necessary facts to quality living for both diabetes and hurricane. The advances in hurricane science diabetic medicine are making major leaps in resources and response every year.
- There is a great deal of hope for the future in how we will address and live with diabetes and hurricanes.
We don’t need to be apprehensive instead we need to be proactive in taking control of our lives in dealing with hurricanes and diabetes. Remember, we don’t have to live at the mercy of hurricanes and diabetes – instead those situations can live with us as long as we are well educated and well prepared manner. Harmony and balance is the goal of life in everything including hurricanes and diabetes!
COMMENTS WELCOMED!
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
From Hurricane Preparedness to Firestorms, People woefully unprepared.
When will we learn our emergency preparedness lessons?
I sat eyes fixed on the TV as I watched the flames destroy the homes of so many. I read of 265,000 people forced to flee their homes in mandatory evacuations. Instead of sea of water and pelting rain, we are seeing blistering winds and ember ash pelting down on unsuspecting homes miles away from ground zero and even more homes catch file.
- Some homes are missed while others are destroyed by nature’s furry.
- Families must rush to get to safety.
- Another stadium is now open for thousands of people to shelter and ride out the storm.
- The roads are clogged with people trying to escape.
- The storm is violent and unpredictable.
- People going to bed thinking they were safe only to be awakened in the middle of the night / early morning told to run for your life.
- Cell phone lines are jammed and communication difficult
- ATM money machines are empty
- Even 6 to10+ hours away from the fires there is not a motel or hotel vacancy.
- People scramble to take their pets with them and have no supplies for them when they leave.
- Many are without their medications and are in distress
- Emergency response is not adequate the vast extend of the fire
- Few have emergency preparedness plans
- Electricity is out for hundreds of miles.
- People have ignored emergency preparedness tips
- Few people have disaster preparedness information
- Less than 4% have even low cost emergency survival kits that they could have made at home for each member of their family and pets.
- Many will be stranded in their cars with no car emergency preparedness kit to rely on.
- Many people running out of fuel for their cars and are stuck on the highway causing severe traffic jams and congestion
- Many thought that that a disaster would never happen to them. WRONG!
COMMENTS WELCOMED!
Monday, October 22, 2007
Emergency Preparedness Ready Quotient
Everyone as Quotient just like a nose! Find out where you stand in disaster preparedness – it could easily save your life!
The best to move forward is to know where you currently are. You can’t know if you are moving forward or backward unless you have an accurate idea of what direction you are facing! Common sense, but, many in our society certainly don’t know much about common sense when it comes to disaster preparedness!
To get a good sense of where you are in you emergency preparedness is to get tested. Yep there is an excellent resource to help you know just where you stand on disaster preparedness. It may be a painful eye-opener for some and a calming resource for others.
All kinds of disaster preparedness information is helpful when considering for the first time or in your semi-annual review of your emergency preparedness checklist and low cost emergency survival kits to see if you are ready and how much is there.
Here are three major facts that should give you a big hint of how ready or not ready a community is for a disaster. Unfortunately unsurprisingly, these statistics are not unexpected.
The good news first – 65% of the people surveyed stated that they knew how to find on the radio the emergency broadcasting station. That is good news since that will give current emergency information on who to respond to a present danger regarding a disaster either human-made or natural in configuration like a hurricane.
Now the bad news.--- Only 4% of the population in the
To find out your RQ (Ready Quotient) go to http://www.whatsyourrq.org
This site has some really exceptional materials. So take your time and review it.
Please share your thoughts, emergency preparedness tips and stories here on this blog.
Be Safe
Culture Of Emergency Preparedness
How is YOUR Disaster Preparedness DNA today?
Every morning I do my regular routine of checking the news to see what has occurred since I went to bed. Today is full of news on the
After checking out the general news, I was just reading a 10 page report that is very comprehensive concerning disaster preparedness. The article by Adrian Morgan entitled Exclusive: ‘Al Qaeda Driven by Undiminished Intent to Attack Homeland’ is an eye opener for many and should be sobering for everyone
.
Out of the 10 pages this one sentence gave chills down my spine.
The culture of preparedness is something that must be embedded into the DNA of all levels of government and ultimately the American people."
Adrian Morgan, The Family Security Foundation, Inc. October 22, 2007 http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/terrorism.php?id=1385066
Reading about the wildfires, evacuations and this report made me wonder what will it take for people to enter into a ‘culture of preparedness’ really to the depths of our being. We keep thinking we are so powerful that we can just wave our magic wand and everything will be nice and rosy for us. This is dangerous wishful thinking. We are in need of a major reality check. We are not living in the utopia of bygone eras. There are those out there that want to kill us. There are serious weather conditions that are causing chaos and destruction on every coast and in-land speck of dirt of every continent.
We need to enter into a culture of emergency preparedness on every land and continent. We are more interested in researching what type of cell phone we have with what fun accessories it has then gathering the disaster preparedness information necessary determine the spending the spending budget on emergency preparedness necessities that can keep us alive so we can worry later about the cell phone accessories.
Less than 4% of all adults have an emergency preparedness plan and even fewer review their emergency preparedness checklist even annually. Everyone needs at least their own personal low cost emergency survival kits for their car, work / school and home. Schools are so worried about no child left behind program but I wonder how many have taught disaster preparedness so in an emergency no child is left behind either.
Besides checking out cholesterol levels every so often, I think we had better develop a DNA test that checks our emergency preparedness level as well. What an eye opener that would be for the world!
COMMENTS WELCOMED!
Please share your thoughts, emergency preparedness tips and stories here on this blog.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Disaster Preparedness & Students At College
The power is out and the students at
I wonder how many of the students had a emergency preparedness kit ready to go in a moment’s notice. If it was like many of the students in my dorms, emergency preparedness was an extra slice of 3-day old pizza!
Often parents send ‘care packages’ to their away at school children. These care packages consist of favorite snacks, telephone cards, extra money, a new funny t-shirt, pictures of back home etc, etc. These are wonderful gifts to have. I so appreciated all the TLC ways my mom showed to me when I was in college.
I know that it might not be the most ‘cool’ thing to send an away at school student, but it could be the most important care package you could ever send. What kind of package you ask? It is an Emergency preparedness kit. Here are some suggestions for kids at college to have in their emergency preparedness kits:
12 power bars for nutrition
Hard candy – incase water is limited or not available the hard candy can help with the issues of thirst.
Pictures of family members and loved one
A note of support and encouragement.
An emergency telephone book / list with the telephone numbers that are important like your cell phones numbers, work numbers, neighbors etc.
A non-local emergency contact.
A deck of playing cards
A roll each of nickels, quarters, dimes that are to be used ONLY in an emergency to call home or to get something form the vending machine
A prepaid credit card with enough money for a motel room or gas money to get to the pre-determined emergency overnight location.
Small notebook an paper
An extra T-shirt and sweatshirt. Get form a thrift store so if they get lost it is not the end of the budget.
Two sets of batteries
Flashlight
CHEAP PORTABLE radio
Copy of any and all prescriptions
A blow up neck pillow
Emergency blanket that is the size of a deck of playing cards but is very warm and looks like foil wrap.
Develop a disaster plan together. Let your child know what you will be doing to help in a disaster. Let them know that you will do all you can to make sure they are safe. That is why you are giving them this emergency preparedness kit. Even thought it is not the most fun discussion to have with your child review the disaster plan at least twice per semester.
I hope this will be of some help to you and your away form home student.
COMMENTS WELCOMED!
All I ask is that everyone be respectful and sensitive of each other and that identifying information about a person who is not the author be limited to protect their privacy.
Terrie
Hurricane Preparedness = ALL Disaster Preparedness
Today I have been checking the news off and on concerning the tragic wildfires that are raging near
EVERYONE NEEDS AN EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS PLAN AS WELL AS A DISASTER KIT FOR THEMSELVES AS WELL AS EVERY MEMBER OF THE HOME (including the Chihuahua dog!
Please folks, get your emergency preparedness checklist updated and then prepare your evacuation routes and be as disaster prepared as possible. We all feel empathy and sorrow for Ms. Nuttall. There is nothing we can do directly for this woman. What we can do is not let this unfortunate situation that she is facing go for naught. Instead let us learn form it and start our own emergency preparedness activities that we need to do, no matter if we re in
COMMENTS WELCOMED!
Terrie
Friday, October 19, 2007
Hurricane preparedness is not the only reason to prepare!
Hurricane preparedness is not the only reason to prepare!
COMMENTS WELCOMED!
All I ask is that everyone be respectful and sensitive of each other and that identifying information about a person who is not the author be limited to protect their privacy.
Be Safe
Hurricane Season NOT over yet – Hurricane Preparedness still a MUST!
So you thought that the 2007 hurricane season was over with? Think again!
I just got an announcement that Tropical Storm Kiko is forecasted to become a hurricane in a few days. Again
One way to start an inventory of all that you may or may not have is to make a game of it. Develop a check list of everything you will need in a disaster including flashlights for everyone, whistles, 2 week minimum of food and water, extra pet supplies , medical prescriptions and over the counter supplies. These are just a few of the things that you will need.
Then divide the list up into separate items. Place all the items into a bag or hat and have everyone draw the slips of paper until all of them are selected. Then go about collecting them all.
Once you have collected everything place them in boxes marked by category and see what you already have and what else you will need. Remember many hands can make light work of emergency preparedness takes. After that is completed make up a emergency preparedness checklist of things you will need to get over the next 4 months. Divide the list into fourths select the cheapest items to buy during the holiday season so it doesn’t pick the budget too much and leaves extra money for the gift-giving season.
In 4 months you will have the emergency preparedness necessities that will be needed to help in 2008 hurricane season without the panic buying when the winds begin to blow!
COMMENTS WELCOMED!
Be Safe
Terrie
Tropical Storm Kiko Will Become Hurricane
http://www.thedailygreen.com/2007/10/19/tropical-storm-kiko-will-become-hurricane/7955/
The latest National Hurricane Center forecast for Tropical Storm Kiko still predicts it will grow into a hurricane as it moves north along the Mexican coast.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Even in mild hurricane seson we need hurricane preparedness
A beneficial end to the hurricane season - Hurricane Preparedness Review ritual.
Remember in school you always had final exams at the end of each semester? Well some things never change. November 6th is Hurricane Preparedness Review Day. It is the same day that we go back to standard time from daylight savings time. It is also the day when everyone is asked to change the batteries in their smoke detectors. What a better day to also review your hurricane preparedness checklist to see which supply items you need to rotate out and use before expiration date and what are the supplies you need to replenish or enhance your current supplies.
I agree whole heartedly with Leigh Tahirovic, the editor of the Naples Sun Times, This year so far has been a mild one and may it stay that way. With this being such a mild year for the
The danger is complacency, and the attitude that there is nothing to worry about. We so desperately want to get back to ‘normal’ that we try to not think about the horrors of 2 years ago. Yet, we should do just the opposite, we need to learn from that tragic occurrence and get as prepared as possible.
No one can help us as much as we can help ourselves!
COMMENTS WELCOMED!
Please share your thoughts, emergency preparedness tips and stories here on this blog.
Be Safe
November 6th is Hurricane Preparedness Review Day.
the date is
Novemeber 6th
Hurricane Preparedness Review Day!
Sorry about the mistake!
COMMENTS WELCOMED!
Please share your thoughts, emergency preparedness tips and stories here on this blog.
All I ask is that everyone be respectful and sensitive of each other and that identifying information about a person who is not the author be limited to protect their privacy.
Terrie