Hurricanes & Monuments

Hurricane Preparedness Support is The BEST Way To Be Remembered By The World!

I’ve just started to receive a daily inspirational quote e-mail from Dax Moy called: “Terrie’s Daily Quote”. It’s 4:57 AM and the words are so profound as the first rays of a new day very slowly start to form beyond the sunrise. In his email to me to day all the way from the United Kingdom he writes:

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others” – Pericles

Hi Terrie

Have you ever stopped to think abut the mark you’re leaving as you travel through life?

It’s so easy not to when we get caught up in our day to day trails and tribulations and worry about how to pay the bills and put food on the table isn’t it?

After all there’s no denying, these things ARE important aren’t they… we’ve all got to eat right?

But just as important, if not more so, is the mark you make during your life and the legacy you leave behind to tell the world that you existed and make it better for those who follow.

What mark are you leaving right now Terrie?

Is it the one you want to be remembered for?

If not, remember, the best place to start a journey is here, the best time is now.

All it takes for you to leave behind something great… is to start!

Start today by being the person you really WANT to be.

Truth, Joy and Love

Dax

That is a really profound letter to say the least and one that is giving me pause this morning. So how does this very profound letter have anything to do with hurricane preparedness? Well it has a lot to do with it.

In my last email and really throughout this entire blog I have been talking about some form or another of hurricane preparation. Often we think of it as what we do for ourselves. It’s important to think about our own needs and how we can best help ourselves.

Yet live is much more than just focusing on me and my our own personal issues. It is also about what we do to contribute to the lives and world of others.

Today, make the world a better place by helping someone else. Most of us know at least one person who lives in a disaster prone area. I bet many of us know a person or two in a hurricane area of the Atlantic seaboard, the Gulf Coast, even the Pacific coast. Perhaps it is not even someone in North or South America but one that lives on a different continent and calls hurricanes ‘cyclones’ or tropical storms etc. What ever the name, it is still a disaster event that can kill and result in devastation for miles and miles and even from country to country.

TODAY why not inquire of the emergency preparedness level and ability that just one other person is making in their personal life. Inquire if that person has a written out disaster plan? Ask them where they plan to go to stay as an evacuation shelter if a disaster should hit their area. Care enough to ask: “Who is their emergency contact person in a disaster situation that is outside of their local area?” If they have no one specified - offer to be that person who will be their contact person and support if a disaster should hit their area!

If they are on a limited budget give or send them a gift card or certificate so they can go specifically and buy some emergency supplies to start their emergency preparedness kit. If you feel that they may not use the money for that purpose then perhaps tuck away some money in an envelop marked for them so that should a pending emergency arise for them you will have something available to help them out. If you would rather not give money directly to someone then make a donation to the Salvation Army or the Red Cross specifically for disaster relief or disaster relief education.

Many of us are involved in a faith community or civic organization. Why not arrange a 2 hour event that offers information on how to be safe in a disaster situation. A great gift we can give to our faith center or local community is to help raise awareness and empower people to begin to help themselves by preparing.

Most organizations and faith expressions will eagerly welcome your efforts to put on such a workshop or event. It doesn’t even have to be you telling others. Ask your local emergency management services office for a speaker to come out and share ideas on how to prepare. Ask your local Red Cross Chapter or Salvation Army representative to come speak. They will more than gladly help with disaster preparedness information. They will bring all kinds of ways to help inform, inspire and empower everyone in the even to begin to prepare.

A Harris poll from June 2007 found out that 61% of Americans had not “made a specific plan for how you and your family would leave your home if you had to evacuate in case of an emergency situation”. So ASK those you know if they have made a specific plan for emergency evacuation. The poll goes on to say that 68% of those inquired had not ‘put together a disaster supplies kit with water, food, medicine and other supplies”.

What is so sad about this survey is that according to the Mason-Dixon poll most of us have the emergency preparedness necessities and components for an emergency preparedness kit already in our homes! Most of us can create low cost emergency survival kits with much of the items already stuffed away in closets or boxes in the garage. In a disaster situation, time is very precious, and it is costly to have to be running around collecting up supplies when if your disaster kits are packed and ready to go you will have a faster opportunity to evacuate safely and well prepared no matter what the circumstances.

One of the greatest ways to leave a mark on this world and make it a better place is to help make life better for at least one other person. YOU can do that today by you and one other person being hurricane prepared.

START TODAY TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN SOMEONE’S LIFE.

Take the emergency preparedness checklist offered for free by this hurricane preparedness blog and Train For A Hurricane and print out 5 copies and give them to your neighbors and friends and ask them each to fix up one disaster kit for their home. Those 5 sheets of paper will be much more important than any 5’ tall monument in some old lonely cemetery years from now.

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.

Be Safe – Be Prepared – Help Others!

Terrie

www.trainforahurricane.com

More information on Day Moy can be found at: www.themagichundred.com