By having the right supplies on hand in the event of an emergency, you can avoid many inconveniences if forced to shelter in place during a disaster. Sometimes we just don’t have the time or warning to evacuate and staying in our homes is the safest option. Following this simple advice should help you and your family to prepare and be self-sufficient until normal services resume. Hopefully this will never happen to you but if it does, you’ll be prepared.
What if a major storm was bearing down on your home and you didn’t have time to evacuate? Would you be prepared to stay in your home without utilities or emergency services until the storm passed four days later? Let’s face it; bad things do happen to good people. We cannot always depend on our local government having a perfect plan in place to protect us in the event of a massive emergency. Certainly that is what we pay them for, but that is a different discussion altogether. Is your family ready for an emergency in which they’ll need to shelter in place? Do you know how you would make your home safe and what supplies you might need to see you through? Such an emergency may never happen, but what if it did? Following are some things to consider when preparing your home and your family for an emergency.
Communication
Communication is key. You’ll need to communicate your plan with your immediate family as well as a family member or friend who lives out of state. That out of state person should be the one that you contact whether you decide to take shelter in place or evacuate. When disaster strikes, you’ll need to call them and let them know what you plan to do. When the emergency has passed, they should be the first person that you contact to let them know that you and the rest of your family are safe. Unfortunately, this will also be the person responsible for contacting your local police if you don’t call to let them know you are safe.
In this day and age, nobody should be without a cellular phone. If you don’t want one to use every day that is fine, but go to your local drugstore and buy a prepaid cellular phone to have on hand in the event of an emergency. If you do have a cellular phone, be sure that you always have a spare batter charged and ready in case your power goes out and you are unable to use a charger. Without electricity, your home phone and all other electronic conveniences will be useless. A cellular phone is a must have in the event of an emergency. Once you have your cellular phone, be sure to program an address book entry entitled “ICE.” ICE stands for “In Case of Emergency”. If anything happens to you and emergency personnel find you, in addition to looking for identification on your person, they will also look for an ICE listing on your cellular phone. Program the name and phone number of your next of kin in that entry so that emergency services will be able to contact them quickly to let them know where and how you are.
Other items that are useful for communication are a flashlight, a small compact mirror and a whistle. A flashlight can be used to signal for help in the dark by flashing it three times. As with the flashlight, three long whistle blasts is also a signal for help. If you need to signal for assistance from the air, simply use your compact mirror to flash at low flying aircraft.
We’ve covered how to send messages, now you need to consider receiving messages. You’ll need a radio. Without electricity, your satellite television and radio will not work, nor will your home computer. None of your electronics will work. You’ll need an old fashioned battery operated AM/FM radio. Be sure to keep plenty of extra batteries with it, just in case you are sheltered in place for several days. Being able to tune in and find out what is going on in the rest of your area will help you to understand the situation and stay calm.