The sheer number of families without an emergency response plan is staggering. These plans not only help to ensure the safety of your family during catastrophic events, natural disasters, and other unprecedented occurrences – but they can also help to keep everyone safe in the event of the more mundane, yet totally devastating disasters experienced every day throughout the country.
Whether you’re concerned with immense, natural disasters or are preparing your family to safely evacuate your home in the event of a fire, these steps will help you ensure that your family remains safe.
Step 1: Identify the Potential Disasters
While you should prepare for any possible disaster, there are some in your area that are more likely to occur than others. Identify these by reaching out to the Red Cross for more information.
Step 2: Determine What You’ll Need During the Event
Of course, basic supplies (like batteries, flashlights, food, water, and first aid kits) are all essential, there may be additional things that would benefit your family during an emergency. Consider medical needs or other personal concerns. Some basic research can help identify the things you need. Again, the Red Cross may be able to help with this.
Step 3: Determine a Meeting Place
A disaster can strike at any time. Make sure that everyone in your family knows where to meet if your home has to be evacuated.
Step 4: Determine an “off-site” coordinator.
In some scenarios, you may not be able to communicate with your family members while responding to the emergency – it could be because cell phone towers are down, or simply that yours was damaged. Having an “off-site” coordinator means having a person that everyone in your family knows to contact in the event of an emergency. By keeping this person’s number handy at all times, you’ll know that you have someone to communicate with while your family is working on getting back together.
It should be someone who lives far outside of the same area as your family to minimize the chances that they’re affected by the disaster, too.
Step 5: Prepare Your Home
Whether the emergency is an earthquake, tornado, flood, or fire, there are certain things you can do to prepare your home for these disasters. Take the time to regularly test smoke detectors and fire extinguishers.
Design and test an escape route, and review it regularly with your family. While you don’t need to run time trials, making sure that your family knows the quickest and safest way out of the house is essential. Making sure that no furniture or other odd objects have gotten in the way of the route is equally important.
Step 6: Teach Your Family Basic Survival Techniques
Make sure that everyone in your family knows basic first-aid and CPR. Of course, young children may not be able to master these skills, but they should also know how to call 911 for emergencies.
It also helps to ensure that everyone in your family knows how to turn off gas supplies, electric supplies, and water supplies. Everyone should also know how to use fire extinguishers.
Step 7: Stock Up
While you don’t need to prepare your family with a decade’s worth of food supplies, make sure that you have enough food on hand to last at least one month without access to the grocery store. Water supplies are equally important.
Don’t just stock up for situations that allow you to hunker down and stay at home, either. Make sure you have kits ready to go – it’s a smart idea to keep a back pack stocked with food, water, tools, and other supplies for each family member.
Step 8: Practice, Drill, and RehearseKeeping a supply of food and water in the trunk of your car is smart, too.
None of these steps will be worth much if your family isn’t ready to implement them the moment it becomes necessary. Regularly practice your emergency exits. Review your plans with your family members to ensure that everyone knows what to do.
Re-Posted with permission from the Guardian blog at
http://www.wholesalesurvivalkits.com/blog/
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