Category: Action Items

A wide-spread emergency can result in a power outage that lasts for days or even weeks. Over that entire time, if you’re on your own, you’ll need an emergency radio — or perhaps more than one — to know what is happening outside your immediate area.

What’s the best radio for emergency purposes?

The photo below shows five radios that we have purchased and tested; find our comparison of these five emergency radios here. (Guess which one of the radios is a dud!)

What follows are the basics for any radio you decide to put in your emergency supply kit.

A portable AM radio will be your lifeline.

Which radio should you choose?

Local emergency services and radio stations will be broadcasting news that you will want. Be sure you know what channel they’ll be using!  (Put a label on each radio.)

 — Evacuation plans: schedules, staging areas, different routes, location and status of available shelters

 — Weather reports: temperatures, anticipated rain and/or winds

 — Location of areas to avoid: “hotspots,” traffic jams, roadblocks

—  Announcements from Police, Fire or other emergency services

Generally, all the above notifications will be broadcast over the AM band. FM and television signals are “line of sight,” so they can get blocked by tall buildings, mountains, etc., and usually dissipate after about 50-75 miles. AM signals, on the other hand, can bounce off the ionosphere and travel much further (even all the way around the earth!). So, in an emergency situation, you want a strong AM radio so you can tune in to local emergency transmissions.

Your radio needs to work for days or even weeks.

In a power outage, your radio won’t work by being plugged into the wall. It will need an additional source of power – typically batteries. When they wear out, how will they be re-charged?

1. Replace the batteries with new ones from your supplies. Obviously, you have to have plenty of the right size: AAA, AA, D, C, etc.
2. Recharge “rechargeable” batteries using a hand crank and generator, built into the radio.
3. Recharge the batteries using solar power, either built into the radio or attached as a separate panel.

What combination of features will work best for you?

Check out our Emergency Radio Review. It has a series of questions that will help you select exactly what you need.  It also identifies the one radio in the group above that you should NOT buy!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

Building Structures, continued . . .

Disclaimer: The following basic info comes from a number of sources deemed to be reputable.  BUT, be sure to get more information before you start making any changes to your home!

Chimneys are dangerous.

If you don’t have a chimney, you can skip this post – but only if your neighbor doesn’t have a chimney, either!

Chimneys are dangerous because they are usually constructed of unreinforced masonry or brick. In an earthquake, they can fall onto the roof of your house or to the ground.  In many cases, the entire chimney falls away from the wall, collapsing in a pile of bricks on the ground.

What’s the condition of your chimney/s?

Take these basic steps to understand the risk in your own home.

Action Item:  Check the condition of your chimney. Is the mortar crumbly? If yes, that’s a danger sign.  Check the attic. Is the chimney tied to the house with metal braces? If not, that’s a danger sign.

Consider these steps to make your chimney safer. 

1. Check around the base of the chimney OUTSIDE to be sure there are no parking areas or play areas that would be threatened if the chimney came down.  Take a look at your nearby neighbor’s chimneys to see that they don’t threaten your yard or house, too.
2. Consult with a professional to see if the chimney can be attached to the house.
3. Consult with a professional to see if your roof or walls can be strengthened — typically with plywood sheets —  to protect against falling brick.
4. Remove the bricks in the top section of the chimney and replace with a metal flue.

Again, any construction you undertake should be with the advice of a qualified professional.  But don’t procrastinate.  If your chimney is dangerous, it’s only getting worse with age.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

If you are just coming across this Advisory, don’t miss the other Advisories that deal with improving your home’s safety:

• Windows
• Inside the home

Share these Advisories with neighbors, too.  Their home is likely to be as vulnerable as yours is.

Preparing Inside the Home

There is no guarantee that you’ll be home when the “big one” hits. But if your home has been prepared to withstand an earthquake or storm, you’ll find more there to appreciate when you DO get back.

I rode through the 1989 quake in the S.F. Bay Area in a restaurant. We came out shaken but unhurt. A couple of hours later I dropped off my colleague at her apartment. I went in with her. It was amazing.

The kitchen looked as though a whirling dervish had gone through every cabinet and cupboard and just tugged and thrown things out into the middle of the room. Broken glasses of relish and jam were mixed with dishes and pots and pans; fruit was mushed in with books and flour and, I remember, a broken bottle of vinegar. Broken flowerpots, broken fishbowl. (Who know where the fish was?) Plates and cups smashed, with a colander lying on top of them. Half the leftovers from the refrigerator, its door hanging open. Everything already starting to smell and spoil.

What a mess!

Step One — Take a Safety Inventory.

To start to prepare your house, simply do a walkthrough and take an inventory of WHAT WILL FALL OUT OR FALL OVER?

Step Two — Build Your Action List.

Now, systematically begin securing your home against this potential damage. Here are some ideas and some of the tools or equipment you’ll need.

* Rearrange storage. Put heavy things on lower shelves, precious things behind cabinet doors. Keep dangerous or toxic materials in low cabinets, too.

* Get latches for your cabinets. Easy, cheap to install.

* Use adhesive putty (“Museum putty”) to pin down collectibles or art work on shelves.

* Strap down computers, monitors and TV screens. (Over 300 people were killed from falling TVs last year, not even in earthquakes!) Strapping kits are available at home improvement stores.

* Fasten bookcases and wardrobes to the wall. Our recent purchase of bookcases at Ikea automatically included earthquake angle brackets.

* Keep books on the shelves, even if the bookcase doesn’t fall over. String a piece of fishing line across the shelf in front of the books, or use specially designed elastic cords.

* Wine bottles?  Take a good look at your wine collection. Figure a way to restrain the bottles by enclosing them.

* Your refrigerator or dish washer may creep or fall in an earthquake. You can fasten it to the wall (to the studs) using plumber’s tape (metal straps with holes) or Velcro fasteners. Get some expert advice here before you attach anything to the refrigerator back.

If you’ve read this far, you realize that each house is different.

Action item: Do the walk-through today! If you have children, enlist their help. Start taking steps to make your home safer. (You’ll sleep better as a result, too.)

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

P.S. You’ll find some specific recommendations for safety fasteners, straps, etc. right  here.

We get used to using the jargon of preparedness, and sometimes forget that not everybody thinks about this stuff on a daily basis! Here is some basic emergency preparedness vocabulary you can share with your neighbors and co-workers, particularly if they are new to the concept or if their English language skills aren’t well developed.

Nobody likes to feel left out or stupid. We have found that offering the vocabulary words “as a refresher” is a good way to develop a new level of engagement and confidence. This approach works for everybody!

Incident

This is the official word for the emergency itself – whether it is a fire, an earthquake, aftermath of a hurricane, or a train wreck. An incident can be local, or it can be widespread. We often think of something that is “incidental” as being not very important. In the world of emergency response, an incident is the most important thing! The Incident Commander is the person who takes charge of the response. (Interestingly enough, the very first person who arrives at the scene may become the first Incident Commander, but when someone more qualified arrives, that person may take over!)

Search and Rescue

This is pretty straight forward. It refers to searching for, finding and helping people in immediate danger. Professionals often divide this up into specialty sub-fields that require special training and/or equipment, such as mountain rescue, swift water rescue, etc.

Search and rescue activities are stopped if it is clear there are no more living victims, or if the situation becomes too dangerous for the rescuers. Eventually, search and rescue changes over to “recovery.”

Cribbing

When rescuers are searching through collapsed structures, they may want to lift pieces of debris to reach people trapped beneath. To do this safely, they lift piece by piece and create a support structure to hold each layer safely before moving on to the next. The process is called “cribbing.” It usually involves using pry bars to lift debris, then building a support underneath using wooden beams laid across one another in the form of a box.

Triage (“tree-ahzh”)

In a real emergency, one of the hardest jobs for a volunteer is to not stop to help the first injured person they come to! Instead, they go through a process to sort injured people into groups based on their need for medical treatment. Triage is that sorting process. Its purpose is to serve the most people when resources are limited. Typically, injured people are briefly assessed and then labeled as “minor” (a minor injury), “immediate,” “delayed,” or “deceased.” A fully equipped CERT team will have colored labels (see illustration to left) to attach to victims; this helps trained first responders know where to go when they arrive.

CERT (“sirt”)

The Community Emergency Response Team concept was started in Los Angeles in the 1980s and is now in every state of the union. Professional First Responders had seen the role that committed, ordinary citizens can play in large-scale disasters, when resources are delayed or spread thin. So they created training to give citizens a way to act more safely and more effectively. CERT training usually consists of 20-24 hours of classroom study and hands-on practice. In an emergency, CERT graduates are able to act first as individuals and later as teams to assess damage, extinguish fires, perform light search and recue and render first aid. When professional First Responders arrive, CERT teams serve as support if required.

Logistics (“lo-jis-tiks”)

This is the science of getting supplies to where they are needed. In an emergency, it involves understanding the scope of the incident, knowing what tools, supplies or equipment are available and where they are stored, and making arrangements for getting things delivered to where they are needed. A volunteer totally unfamiliar with the neighborhood or business will not be able to manage this job.

In our neighborhood, we have special teams devoted to each of these special areas. The leaders of these teams call upon other volunteers and direct them, as required.

Action item:  Consider printing out these definitions for all team members, and going over them out loud at a training meeting so everyone knows how they sound.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

Like words?  Here are a couple of other “vocabulary” lists for different situations!

• Business emergencies
• Police Jargon

Doorhanger breaks preparation into four stages.

When it comes to being prepared, storing water and food are just the beginning. Unfortunately, many people stop there.

Our neighborhood CERT team wanted to get a better result. We researched and then broke preparation down into four stages to make it easier for people to get started building their emergency survival kit.

Our Doorhanger

Detailed instructions were published on a bright yellow doorhanger, distributed by the local block captain. Each hanger had the name and contact information of the  block captain, along with other emergency phone numbers.

The Process

Completing the four stages will take people several weeks. But they will be well prepared when they have accomplished it. Here’s how the doorhanger was laid out.

Stage One: Stay-at-Home Stash. Eleven things you and your family (including pets) need to Shelter in Place for at least a week. Superstorm Sandy showed just how important the Stay-at-Home Stash is.

Stage Two: Medical and Personal Care. These items – seven categories of them — will keep you alive and functioning. For senior citizens, this list includes spare glasses and hearing aid batteries.

Stage Three: Important Papers. Collecting papers and having them in one location, preferably protected from fire AND available to be moved, is the biggest challenge for everyone. Certainly, you can’t pull them together in just a few moments, and that may be all the time you have.  (We are working on getting electronic copies of important papers onto flash drives that would be easy to carry.)

Stage Four: Evacuation Kit. A bag or backpack contains items from the earlier stages, plus extra car keys, computers, etc.

Action Step for YOUR neighborhood

What would it take for YOUR neighbors to get prepared? You can download and duplicate excellent “Be Prepared” lists from the Red Cross, from CERT, and probably from your city.

We believe that customizing the message to our neighbors will make it more likely that they will follow through. Printing the list on a brightly colored door-hanger, instead of on a sheet of paper, makes it memorable. And delivering the message door to door is an important way to introduce and involve our CERT team.

P.S.  We’ll keep you updated on our progress!

UPDATE: It has been two years since the first Doorhanger was distributed. This year we updated, reprinted and distributed it again. So many people remembered it and still had the original in a drawer or on the refrigerator!

Trying to inspire and organize your neighborhood to prepare for an emergency is like trying to sell someone life insurance. “I’d rather not think about it,” is a typical response, often accompanied by a sheepish grin.

But a consistent effort does pay off. Last week we held a meeting of our neighborhood block captains, and around 30 people showed up. It turned out to be one of the best meetings we’ve had.

Action Item:  If you’re planning a get-together, consider incorporating the following ideas.

Changing batteries in handheld radios

What makes a good meeting?

1. A good reason! In this case, block captains were given new materials for handing out to their neighbors.

2. Good publicity. An article in our neighborhood newsletter, announcement at the Homeowners’ Association meeting, followed by email reminders and flyers hand-delivered to each block captain. (Multiple reminders are essential! It’s like that old saying that people have to see your ad seven times before they buy.)

3. Name tags for everyone. They make you “a part of the group” and make it easier for team members to get to know one another.

4. A role for each person. In this case, each block captain brought his or her radio and we changed out the batteries. (We do it twice a year.)

5. Variety of activities. Attendees changed batteries, watched a short film downloaded from YouTube (while eating popcorn!), and picked up their handouts for their neighbors.

6. Good audio-visual equipment. Our team has invested in a portable speaker that has great sound quality. We hooked up the computer to it when we showed the film, and also used the microphone for training.

The meeting had an agenda, and it was followed.  People got what they came for and were in and out in a tight 60 minutes. They’ll be willing to come out again as a result.

If you are growing a CERT group, consider grabbing a copy of one or both of of Emergency Plan Guide’s “from the trenches” workbooks. They pull ideas from the past 15 years into handy guidebooks. Get details here.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

P.S. Our third version of Great Meeting Ideas is being assembled now. Sign up for our Advisories below to be sure you get the notice when it comes out!

Are we talking Business Continuity or Business Emergency Response?

Organizing an emergency response team for a business is not the same as building a business continuation or business continuity plan…but they do complement one another.

The objective of a Business Continuity Plan is to preserve the mission critical elements of a business to assure that it can operate under a variety of conditions following a disruption.

Don’t be lulled into thinking that a contunity plan focuses on computers and customer transaction data. A good continuity plan is far more comprehensive than that! One place to start in assessing your business’ need for a continuity plan is to join the American Red Cross, Ready Rating™ program on line at: www.redcross.org/prepare/location/workplace. It’s free and includes a 125 question, self-paced analysis.

The primary objective of a Business Emergency Response Team is to save the lives of employees and managers first and preserve the business properties second.

Some Challenges May Be Outside The Business’ Control

The greatest challenges that a business faces in a major catastrophe are the various circumstances that may be outside its controls.

1. The location of the facilities, the surrounding businesses, city’s infrastructure, etc. are one aspect of the problem. Many businesses don’t take potential emergencies or infrastructure risks into consideration when they set up shop.
2. The natural urge of employees and managers to get home and check on the welfare of family and loved ones is the human side of the equation and it is something that has to be addressed in any plan that is expected to work.
3. And that leads us to the third problem: the Corporate Emergency Plan.  We have been exposed to a number of them, and have helped design programs for building Business Continuity Plans. The tendency in business is to build these plans by the “bulk” (see photo).  More often than not, this renders them unworkable. It’s much like a battle plan. It looks great on paper, but is usually superseded once the action begins.
   

   Business Continuity Plan — How useful?

Some of the issues that these plans find impossible to address effectively:

— Whether it’s a natural disaster or a major terrorist attack, you can’t predict what the damage is going to be or who will be in a position to respond to the emergency.

— The natural tendency in business is to “appoint” managers to lead Response Teams. Not everyone is physically or mentally equipped to respond effectively in an emergency situation. In many cases, the best leaders in an emergency will not be managers.

— There are legal issues to be considered, often associated with shareholders, financial and reporting requirements, etc. as well as with protecting employee volunteers.

Volunteer status and the Good Samaritan Law

In most states there are laws in place to protect citizens who act in a Good Samaritan capacity. The protection is even greater when people have received CERT, First Aid or other Red Cross training.

Action Item:  As you consider your own business emergency response plan, check to be sure how the Good Samaritan Law works in your state.

Forming a Business Emergency Response Team

The real criteria for forming a Business Emergency Response Team are thus volunteer status and training.

We think that a business has an easier task of forming a CERT-trained Emergency Response Team than another group simply because employees are readily available, and their interests in saving the business are aligned with management’s interests.

For small businesses in a multi-tenant building, it may be beneficial to join forces in building a CERT group for the building or a logical section of the building.

Which is more important, Business or Neighborhood preparation?

In all our posts, we look at getting organized and getting training, whether at the workplace or at the neighborhood level.  In many cases, these overlap.  In all cases, more is better.  This is what inspires us to keep working!

Joe Krueger
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

“A Creative Organizer Creates an Organization That Can Function Well Without Him.”  Eric Hoffer (1802 – 1983)

Getting started is always the hardest part of any task because it represents change.  Overcoming inertia requires fortitude as well as vision.

But the old adage that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step holds true in building a CERT group as well.

Step One: Identify leaders in your neighborhood.

There are people who have the ability to grasp the importance of preparation and group action as well as the vision to make it happen.  If you are out and about, and you use some of the questions we brought up in the last post, you will begin to recognize these people.

Step Two: Find sources of training.

Action Item: Invite these potential leaders to meet in a group to discuss the advantages of having a CERT organization in the neighborhood and to start the investigation for local training.

A good place to start is your local fire department, police department and city hall. Does your city have a local Department of Emergency Management?

If so, and it periodically conducts CERT training classes, they are usually jointly funded with FEMA. If no classes are offered by your city, try the county or adjacent cities and/or visit the CERT website at www.CitizenCorps.gov/CERT/ and click on the State Directory. That will tell you the closest CERT organization. Usually, the training is provided over a period of between 25 & 30 hours.

These classes are usually run in 3-hour segments, one or two days a week or on weekends for people who work or reside in the city or county. Courses are also taught on line, but the real benefit is the hands-on experience with things like fire suppression, cribbing and other aspects of light search & rescue.

Step Three: Get your core group CERT trained. 

Your objective is to get a few people (as many as possible) CERT trained as the foundation of your neighborhood group. Ideally, if you can get 6 or 8 people through the training, you have the core group, Eventually, depending on the population density, you will want to double that number since it is unlikely that all of your CERT-trained people will be home at the time of an emergency.

This raises the question, what size group is best?

That depends on the nature of your area . . . such as the number of homes, whether or not you have apartment dwellings, commercial establishments and the physical location of homes, etc. Ideally, a team of a dozen people can handle 40-60 homes. If you have more than that, say 100 or so residences, your group might encompass 25-30 people, split up into teams or divisions.

(Our neighborhood, for example, has 360 homes.  We’ve divided it into six divisions, with a team of 10-12 for each division.)

More to come… 

We’ll get into this in more detail in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, there are things that should be covered before actually structuring the team/s. Identifying the people who can and will participate is the main objective in the beginning.

Note:  If your interest is in building a CERT team at the workplace, check out this Advisory.

It could have been so much worse.

We had an emergency in our neighborhood this last week. Didn’t fall into the category of widespread disaster, but we are all still shaking our heads about “what could have been” if it had been a windy day…

A total loss

One of our elderly neighbors called AAA because her car wouldn’t start. She hadn’t used it in months. Well, AAA came, started the car, and suggested that the owner let it run “for a while.”

An hour later, she had fallen asleep. And that car, parked right alongside the house, was beginning to smoke.

Quick action by observant neighbors.

When the mailman came by, the car and carport were engulfed in smoke, and flames were licking at the house itself. About that time neighbors saw the flames, too, and called the fire department. The mailman pounded on the door and pulled the shaky and confused resident right out into the street. She was safe.

Meanwhile, the house was burning.  Three different fire stations responded to the 911 calls, as did a number of police cars.

By the time First Responders arrived…

By the time they arrived, CERT members had taken in the homeowner and called her relatives, and were clearing the streets of gawkers in order to allow ready access to the First Responders.  CERT training made it easy for these neighbors to act promptly and with authority!  The CERT team members didn’t save the house — even the fire department couldn’t do that — but the neighborhood was definitely safer as a result of their actions.

Action Item: Make sure all your cars are properly maintained, exercised on a regular basis, and always have at least a half-tank full of fresh gas in case you need to evacuate. This simple discipline will save your investment, and may well save your life.

In our last post we talked about the importance of making sure employees have an out-of-region emergency contact person so they can find out what is happening to other family members.  When employees know family members are safe, they can turn their attention to the business.

Naturally, having a plan will help employees take action promptly and effectively.

Basic planning can save lives and save your job.

Seven Steps to Workplace Preparedness

Even if you are not the employer, you can take the responsibility to organize your workplace. This action can save lives as well as save the business – and your income.

We have developed a one-page poster to help you get started. It is designed to raise awareness and start conversations about workplace survival. Share it with your co-workers, hang it in the break room or bathroom. Make copies — and get started on a plan.

Action Item:  Download “Seven Steps to Workplace Preparedness” now.