Preparedness Month

September has been dubbed "Preparedness Month."  What have you done to prepare your family and your workplace for a disaster?  Have you started your plans?  Have you conducted a Business Impact Analysis?  This week's article will review previous preparedness articles and consolidate several key links to help you instill resiliency into everyday life.

Lessons Learned from India's Power Crisis -

India suffered a huge power outage affecting over 670 million people.  What would happen if the power went out, on a massive scale, right now?  If you are at work or in transit, how would you get home?  How do you conduct business?  How do you care for your family?  When reviewing this article think about how would you take care of your family for a week without power (remember the entire area is out of power too).

Sheltering in Place -

What is sheltering in place?  How do you shelter in place?  This term is also used to describe actions taken during an active shooter situation.  Residents or employees are to barricade themselves in their offices/homes to prevent the suspect from entering the space and continuing crime.  In either circumstance, have you prepared your business and home for sheltering in place?

Managing Your Emergency Supplies -
Food expires, first aid supplies lose their sterility, and water containers breakdown.  Buying emergency supplies means maintaining them as well.  Check your expiration dates, review your stockpiles and supplies.  Ensure you are ready for tomorrow, even if you prepared for it last year.

Family Evacuation Plans -
Hurricanes, wild fires, gas leaks, flooding, and civil unrest all drive people away from their homes.  Sometimes families are given warning of the impending incident, sometimes they are not.  Even if your family is not in a danger area, a neighborhood fire or gas leak may drive you away from your home temporarily.  This article discusses key points and lessons learned for evacuating your family safely.

Exercising Your Plans -
Whether you are an Emergency Management Officer or a family leader, plans/courses of action are worthless without exercise.  Testing your plans ensure they work correctly, familiarize others with their responsibility, and builds confidence in the plan.  Exercises and testing are critical portions of effective planning.  They are all too often neglected.

Lessons Learned for Family Preparedness -
Take other's lessons and use them to shape your plans.  Each incident discussed was unique, but carried pertinent lessons for us to ponder as we create family plans.

Where to Begin -
Wrapping up the preparation review is an article focusing on where to begin preparing.  A fantastic way to finish out this review.

Key Sites to Help Your Preparedness -
http://www.ready.gov/
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/hq/emergency/personalPreparedness/index.html
http://www.calema.ca.gov/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.floridadisaster.org/index.asp
http://www.fema.gov/
Food Insurance
Emergency Reserve
http://www.emergencymgmt.com/
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/prepare/ready.php
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/preparedness/plan/
http://www.weather.gov/
http://72hours.org/

Feel free to ask for help, guidance, or just a general question.  Prepare your family.  Prepare your workplace.