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As we progress into the Hurricane Season, each of us need to take inventory of our supplies, assess our readiness, and plan for safety in a storm.
According to FEMA director, Craig Fugate, his should begin with three basic steps:
Download the FEMA app. With the FEMA smartphone app you’ll have all the information you need to know what to do before, during, and after a hurricane. You can also receive weather alerts in your area from NOAA’s National Weather Service, find lifesaving safety tips, and have access to disaster resources should you need them. You can download the app from the Apple App store or the Google Play store. The FEMA app is also available in Spanish.
Hurricane Season just began June 1st and runs through November 30th - Prepare Now!
Join the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Thursday, January 11, 2016, as we present the newly updated Student Tools for Emergency Planning (STEP) materials and share tips and lessons learned from teaching the program.
STEP is a classroom-based emergency preparedness curriculum that teaches fourth and fifth-graders about emergencies and how to create a disaster supply kit and family emergency communications plan.
Title: Step into Preparedness
Date: Thursday, February 11, 2016
Time: 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. EST
Featured Speakers:
Read these to get Ready! Youth Preparedness, Youth Preparedness Council, Update on Youth Preparedness
How to Join the Student Tools for Emergency Planning Webinar: Click Here
If a winter storm should strike, do you have safeguards in place to protect your business? Preparing your business for both short and long-term interruptions is important. Additionally, business owners should consider having an action or communications plan for their employees.
What can a business do? Assign a leader and get these thing done for the sake of continuing your business after the storms, and for the safety of your employees and visitors:
Before the Storm
During the Storm
Do you live in a Tsunami Zone, a Flood Basin, or in Tornado Alley? We are right in the middle of earthquake country... sure, we could move, but we don't.
According to Discovery News, we humans may be willing to put daily pleasure ahead of the threat of long-term disaster when selecting where to live, a new international study suggests. Study co-author Professor Ben Newell, of the University of NSW, said the research examined how people would react to being told of a predicted increase in the risk of natural disasters with climate change. Professor Newell, from the School of Psychology, said it was surprising how little weight participants in the study gave to disaster threat.
Most Americans live within 25 miles of their mothers, according to a study co-authored by an economics researcher and Robert A. Pollak, Ph.D., at Washington University in St. Louis.
Alarmingly, according to the article "Calculated Risk: Why People Live in Disaster Zones" There was also a tendency after a disaster had hit for some people to move into that area, which is consistent with a kind of thinking that lightning isn’t going to strike in the same spot twice... not very sound reasoning.
While businesses and community groups often focus on preparedness, oftentimes, households are themselves unready - is your home ready?
Household Disaster Preparedness: Influences of Preparedness Knowledge and Beliefs — United States, 2015
Understanding people’s knowledge and beliefs regarding household disaster preparedness might make public-health messages promoting household preparedness more effective. It is believed that knowledge influences behavior, and that attitudes and beliefs, which are correlated with knowledge, might also influence behavior. To determine the association between knowledge and beliefs and household preparedness, CDC analyzed baseline data from Ready CDC, a personal disaster preparedness intervention piloted within the CDC workforce during 2013–2015. Compared with persons with basic preparedness knowledge, persons with advanced knowledge were more likely to have assembled an emergency kit (44 percent versus 17 percent), developed a written household disaster plan (9 percent versus 4 percent), and received county emergency alert notifications (63 percent versus 41 percent). Similarly, beliefs about preparedness affected household preparedness behaviors.
We share a lot of our own suggestions and advice culled from decades of experience in lifesaving and disaster preparation for our clients. Today we'd like to share a post from another author.
There are four steps you should take before a disaster:
Disasters occur in the United States with regularity. What will you do before, during, and after a disaster? Before a disaster, you should know how to respond, plan your escape, locate supplies, develop an emergency communications plan, and set up an emergency pen for pets. During a disaster, you should listen to a battery-powered radio or TV or instructions. After the disaster, you should turn off all utilities if there is time. If you need to evacuate leave as soon as possible, but leave a note saying where you are going. You should notify emergency responders for injured or trapped people. Finally, you should return home only after authorities advise it is safe to do so. Read more on Family Disaster Planning by Fred Fanning
On Thursday, February 26 at 2 p.m. Eastern Time, emergency managers will host a special TweetChat titled “What is America’s PrepareAthon! and How to Participate.” Join the chat to learn more about this national, grassroots campaign for action to increase community preparedness and resilience through hazard-specific group discussions, drills, and exercises.
During the conversation, you can also connect with preparedness groups, businesses, emergency managers, and city officials about the campaign, disaster preparedness efforts, and how to take action. Hear from communities and organizations around the country who have participated in America’s PrepareAthon! activities previously or are planning to participate in an upcoming event. Ask questions related to preparing your own community, and begin planning your own America’s PrepareAthon! event.
Join in or follow along using #PrepareAthon. You can also help spread the word about the TweetChat on your social media outlets by sharing this message: “We’re joining the #PrepareAthon conversation on 2/26 at 2PM ET to learn how to increase community preparedness and so should you!”
OK - so we're already FedEx fans... we get great rates to pass on to our customers, and we have an awesome Rep that takes special care of us... but this impressed us:
While it is in FedEx's own interest to send out Service Alerts such as the above warning of possible service interruptions and delays, they have no direct business purpose in offering Disaster Preparedness tips and checklists, but they do anyway.
They take the extra time to post and share disaster safety information and links to sites like the National Weather Service to help people stay informed. Good business. Good PR, Good for you FedEx.
Here's their Emergency Preparedness Checklist for Small Businesses:
Developing an emergency preparedness plan is one of the most important strategic decisions you will make as a small business owner. Consider how a natural, human-caused or public health disaster could affect your employees, customers and workplace. Would business operations continue? Preparing your small business doesn’t have to be time consuming or expensive. Ask yourself the three questions below and use this checklist to help you prepare your business to stay in business.
1. How vulnerable would your business be if a disaster or other emergency were to occur?
? Know your region and the types of disaster most likely to have an impact on your
business.
? Assess the capacity of your employees to prepare for and respond to an emergency.
? Identify external emergency response resources that will provide assistance during a disaster or other emergency. Who will you contact in an emergency and what will they be able to provide?
2. What is your plan to protect the business and its employees before, during and after an emergency?
? Identify a First Aid team. Approximately 10-15 percent of your workforce should be trained in first aid and CPR so that they can assist in times of disaster or emergency until help arrives.
? Obtain necessary safety equipment. Budget for and purchase any safety equipment, first-aid kits, Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) fire extinguishers, smoke detectors and shelter-in-place supplies that may be needed. Make sure employees know how to use and access these supplies.
? Write a plan for responding to emergencies. Your plan should include:
? Develop a Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP). This plan will help keep your business operating as it responds and recovers from the effects of a disaster or emergency situation. Here’s how to start developing a COOP:
3. What can we do to integrate emergency preparedness procedures into our every day business operations?
? Educate Employees. Consider partnering with community organizations to help create comprehensive preparedness training. All employees should know:
? Practice Your Plan. Practice makes perfect. Conduct regular evacuation, COOP activation and shelter-in-place drills.
? Encourage personal preparedness among employees. Your employees will be better able to help your business respond and recover from an emergency if they know how to prepare their homes and families.
? Help your community get prepared. Work with local community groups and government officials to ensure that your community is prepared for disasters and other emergencies.
Participating in America’s PrepareAthon! is easy and inexpensive. Your organization can participate in several ways:
America’s PrepareAthon! enables individuals and organizations to prepare for specific hazards through informative presentations, group discussions and activities, and tabletop exercises. Organizations have tremendous influence on their members and constituents when it comes to preparing for a disaster. For example, when employers encourage employees to be prepared for disasters, employees are 75 percent more likely to take action. And with more than 63 percent of the U.S. population aged 16 or older in the labor force, the workplace is one of the most effective environments for educating and encouraging people to take steps to be ready for disasters.
Participating in America’s PrepareAthon! will benefit your workplace or community organization by helping you to:
*** Don’t miss all our great Disaster Preparedness Articles, Tips, Survival Plans, Guides and Emergency Preparedness Recommendations in the National Preparedness Month Blog