Does Your City or Local Police Department Have a Mass Alert System?

Last month we talked about the “Lone Wolf” terrorist and the random nature of such attacks. While there is little, if anything, that authorities can do to predict or prevent these attacks, some cities are instituting a Mass Alert Notification System . . . a message distribution system to get the word out immediately when something does happen.

Basic Level

Actually, most cities have a basic telephone notification system; the most popular one is called Reverse 911®. When an emergency happens or threatens, authorities can automatically send out a recorded phone message to all or some of the phone numbers found in the database within that geographic area. If the line is busy, the phone will redial several times in an attempt to leave its message. The important limitation to Reverse 911 is that it only goes to landlines.

If you do not have a landline, or are not home or at a work number when the call goes out,
you will miss the message.

Enhanced System

How will they reach you?

Our city has enrolled in an enhanced mass messaging system, called “iAlert.” This is an opt-in program; you go online and sign up for the service and the message comes to you three ways, depending on which options you sign up for.

First, it comes by recorded telephone call to the primary or work telephone number you provide. (This can be a landline, a VOIP line, or a cell phone number.)

You will also receive an email to the email address you give, and finally, the message comes as an SMS text message to your smart  or mobile phone. The only cost is the SMS charge is for the standard data cost imposed by your cell phone carrier when you receive a text message.

IAlert messages can also be sent to hearing-impaired receiving devices.

Useful, Targeted Messages

On more than one occasion we have received notifications of missing persons, suspected active shooter situations and alerts to fires in progress. Our CERT team has also received activation alerts.

If your local authorities provide this service, you can likely sign up for it on the city’s website. If not, you may want to inquire at your local Police Department of their interest in providing the service in the future.

Joe Krueger
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

What about First Responders?

Gated communities are more popular than ever. People seem to agree that the gates are a symbol of security and exclusivity.

That’s all well and good until there’s an emergency and suddenly the gates become not a symbol but an actual barrier to entry for residents and First Responders.

Run a quick search online and you will find, like I did, some outrageous stories of people inside their gates, waiting and waiting for help while police or the fire department waits outside — powerless to get in.  In fact, you’ll find stories of people who died, waiting.

The problem of emergency access to your gated property may never have been discussed because no emergency has ever arisen. But if you live in a gated community,  have gated parking at your workplace, or know someone who does, part of your emergency preparation is to . . .

Get the answers to these 5 questions.

1. Mechanism. How do First Responders open your gates? Is there some sort of lockbox requiring a physical key? An electronic card reader? A punch-in-the-code pad? A remote that requires batteries? A system that responds to light or sound (siren) frequencies?
2. Updates. If you have a key-pad, who reports updates or changes in the code to the authorities? In two of the stories I read, the management company for the community had changed. The new company changed the code. Nobody reported the changes to the local dispatch.
3. Keys. If you have a lock-box system with a unique key, who manages the keys to your community? Does each gated community in your area have a different key, requiring First Responders to have a huge key ring? What assurance do you have that the key has not been compromised or illegally duplicated?
4. Knox Box. A common lock-box system is called the Knox Box. (Open the box to get to a switch that opens the gate or to a key to open a gate, a home, etc.) All boxes in a local area operate off the same key. If you have a Knox Box, how do First Responders keep track of their master key? Is it floating around somewhere in the cab of the fire engine?
5. Power outage. And the most important question of all: What happens to your gates when the power goes out? Do your gates have a fail-safe override mechanism that allows a gate that isn’t working properly to be manually pushed open so that vehicles or people are neither locked in nor locked out?

Some years ago I lived in an apartment building in Northern California that had parking under the building. I drove in through a gate that raised up when I pressed my “clicker.” When the power went off, the gate remained down. It was way too heavy to lift by hand. If I had the key to the “pedestrian gate,” I could park outside the building and get in through a locked gate near the pool. Otherwise, I was stuck standing outside on the street.

Now I live in a gated community in Southern California. (Don’t worry, I’ve lived in other states too!) Several years ago we upgraded our unmanned gates to the Click2Enter system.  Residents get a battery-powered clicker; First Responders open the gates with a click of their mobile or portable radio transceiver (which has to be programmed with specific frequencies).  First Responders enter with no noise and no fuss. (That’s our gate in the photo. You can see the blue and white Click2Enter box attached at the left side of the center column.)

When the power goes out temporarily, our gates can continue to operate on back-up battery power. (We can count on several power outages a year.) In an extended outage, the gates will open and then remain open.  (This has caused our Emergency Response Group’s security committee to make special plans to keep strangers from entering. That’s another post for a later day.) .

Since we’ve had no problems, we had no idea of what to expect until we began to dig into the issue.  I suggest you dig into the details of your own gates before something happens in your community or at your workplace. The fact that there seem to be few if any building standards for gate operation means you may come up with a surprise!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

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Post instead of Page

In the world of the internet and WordPress, a post is a post and a page is a page. You just got a post from me when I meant to put up a page!

So now the secret is out!

I’m assembling a book of CERT Meeting Ideas for people who train neighborhood CERT groups.

Group leaders, particularly new ones, are always looking for good meeting ideas. After playing a leading role in our neighborhood group for over 5 years, I have planned and put on dozens of meetings! And since I’m me, I have kept notes on each one.

My upcoming book . . .

has about 30 meeting ideas, based on actual experience. There’s a page for each idea, with:

• a title
• objective
• procedure
• materials needed
• comments

As soon as the book is finished, I’ll be coming out with a grand announcement. In the meanwhile, if you would like to get on the list to get that announcement, you can do so by clicking here:

I want Ideas for CERT meetings!

Thanks for your understanding regarding the post/page foul-up!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

“News Item–If you own or work for a small business the odds of it surviving a major earthquake or weather event are 50/50 at best.”

Ignoring reality?

Around our household we have an item that we brand as “the ecology.” It’s actually a “sanitized” word for the sometimes-yukky vegetable garbage destined for the compost pile.

In the world of business, similar sanitizing goes on around the mess that can occur after a major disaster.

The first sanitized term that comes to mind is “Business Continuity.” “Business Continuation” runs a close second. By and large, these expressions are unfamiliar to employees and may be only vaguely understood by owners. (“Something to do with insurance?”)

When a catastrophe can result from something as simple as a backhoe cutting communications lines, it makes no sense to ignore emergency preparedness!

“Sanitizing” the way we think or talk about survival is plain foolish.

A Major Flaw

Large corporations put a great deal of effort into plans to preserve data and – in theory – protect their employees and physical premises. Whether or not their cumbersome plans are even read by staff is questionable, and the subject of another article.

When it comes to small businesses, only about 35% have even a rudimentary plan for how to prepare for and recover from an emergency. (Employee surveys show that employees are aware of this lack.)

Even when a small business does have a Continuation or Continuity Plan, most totally overlook their major asset: their people.

The False Assumption

Business owners seem to be operating on the assumption that their employees and suppliers will continue to be available in an emergency.

“We’ll just pitch in, clean up and get back to business.”

The reality is that everyone impacted by a catastrophe will be preoccupied with their own priorities. The business will take second place and may not even come into focus for hours or days.

It’s no wonder that most small or local businesses simply never reopen their doors after an emergency, or shut them down permanently within a couple of years.

Plugging the Hole

While there is no silver bullet, there are ways to improve your chances of survival. One of the best ways is also often the least expensive. It’s called CERT.

Many cities in the U.S. have an emergency management department and many provide free Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training, in conjunction with FEMA. If your city doesn’t offer the training, it is on line at the FEMA site. (https://www.fema.gov/community-emergency-response-teams/about-community-emergency-response-team)

An astute business owner or senior manager recognizes the conflict of priorities between work and family. Supporting CERT training for employees has benefits for all:

• CERT training starts with security for the family. The sooner employees are confident that their families are O.K., the faster they can turn their attention back to work.
• The same survival skills learned in CERT work for neighborhood groups and work teams.
• A CERT-trained employee is likely to have honed communication and teamwork skills that benefit many areas of the business’s day-to-day operations.

Everybody Wins With CERT Training

Why are city and county governments so willing to put on this training for businesses and communities at little or no cost?

Simple. Trained citizens and prepared businesses have a 500% better chance of survival in a catastrophe.

That means less pressure on the First Responders and Disaster Recovery Operations in the aftermath. It means fewer deaths from “spontaneous” untrained volunteer efforts. And the big benefit is the continued tax revenues that support the community.

No matter how you look at it, Business Continuation Planning and CERT training for citizens and employees is a win-win situation. It should be a no brainer for any business owner.

Ready to start the conversation about emergency training in your own business?

We’ve put together a one-page pdf to get you started. It’s free.

Joe Krueger
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

Overlooked or Abandoned?

Every week I get one or another Google Alert about some group that is either not taking care of itself in an emergency or that has been overlooked by “the authorities.”

In our community CERT group, we do not have the where-with-all to take care of neighbors with disabilities. We don’t have specialized medical knowledge, or (expensive) specialized equipment or even the physical stamina to lift or move some of them. But . . .

We are aware of our neighbors and do our best to keep their needs in mind . . .

as we work on building our – and their — readiness to respond in the face of a disaster. As you build your own neighborhood group, here are

Some questions to ask:

from Lee Wilson, founder at The Egress Group. More at http://accessibleexitsigns.com/

Shelter-in-Place.  When a heavy storm hits, the best course for most people is to shelter in place, assuming they have stored food, clothing, etc.  The questions to ask your disabled neighbors:

1. Do you have food supplies that you are able to prepare for yourself (canned food, water) or do you depend on regular food deliveries from Meals on Wheels or other food service?
2. Do you use any electric or electronic devices to treat a chronic condition, such as breathing treatments or sleeping machines? What plans do you have for back-up power? (Oxygen tanks, battery back-up)

Needed travel.  Do any of your neighbors need regular trips away from their home to get medical treatments like as kidney dialysis? In a severe weather situation, can your neighbor answer these questions:

1. Do you know what to do if you are unable to reach your doctor for several days? (diet, hydration)
2. Do you know where to go for treatment if your local clinic is closed? (addresses of alternate locations)
3. Who would come to get you for dialysis if your regular caregiver isn’t available?
4. What if the elevator isn’t working?

Evacuation.  In the case of an evacuation, many people who may not appear disabled may need assistance.  For example, people who are hard of hearing might not recognize the signal to evacuate. People with difficulty walking might not be able to negotiate stairs. People who can walk may not be able to handle door handles or locks. Questions to ask:

1. Does our building/community have evacuation signage that incorporates signage for disabled people? (visual? touchable?)
2. Is there a plan to find people ready and able to assist disabled people to evacuate?
3. Is specialized evacuation equipment necessary, and available?

Practice and planning do make a difference.

The National Fire Protection Association’s 2007 Emergency Evacuation Planning Guide for People with Disabilities tells the following story.

During the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, a man with a mobility impairment was working on the 69^th floor. With no plan or devices in place, it took over six hours to evacuate him. In the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, the same man had prepared himself to leave the building using assistance from others and an evacuation chair he had acquired and had under his desk. It only took 1 hour and 30 minutes to get him out of the building this second time. 

Perhaps you can share this story with friends and with your CERT team to stimulate some creative thinking.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

Forward this email to someone you know who could use the information.  One out of five Americans has some sort of disability.

Challenging the neighbors

A couple of weeks ago I reported that our local CERT group was

PowerPoint presentation for group

scheduling a showing of “Run, Hide, Fight: Surviving an Active Shooter Event.”  Since it’s only 6 minutes long, we planned a brief half-hour meeting for intro, showing, and discussion.

(I embedded the downloaded video into a PowerPoint presentation – see photo — so I could create a complete talk, with intro and some follow-up questions.)

I announced the showing in our neighborhood newsletter (one small paragraph in a 20-page newsletter), on our neighborhood website, and also via email to my list of about 30 neighbors.

And I got a response I wasn’t expecting.

I’m sharing the story here because I’d like to hear YOUR comments.

As always, I try to create some curiosity with my headline to attract more readers. Here’s what I used this time:

“If it happens, you’ll have only seconds to react . . .”

Then I followed up with, “The chances of you finding yourself in the middle of an active shooter event are small, but that’s what the people in Ottawa probably thought, too.”  Details of the meeting followed.

Anyway, here’s a response that I received:

“Suspense, is that the answer to something so important to our lives?” 

 The writer went on for several long messages, criticizing me for not revealing immediately how to respond in an active shooter event.

 My reaction  . . .

•  At first I was surprised at the vehemence of the writer.
• Then I got defensive. (“I know from experience that simply reading a sentence or too won’t compare with making the effort to join a group to watch the video and discuss it.”)
• Finally I figured this subject had simply triggered something for this particular individual.

The meeting came and went.

We had a modest attendance with a number of good comments and questions. This was a senior audience, so the discussion about “FIGHT” was different from what a younger crowd might have had. And it was also agreed that a new version of the video could profitably be made with the setting in a mall or retail establishment instead of in a workplace.

People were interested and participated, and several thanked us for “good information.”

With the meeting over, we went home. But I keep remembering that email exchange.

So now, it’s your turn to comment.

Have you shown the video to a group?  If so, what message did you use to attract attendance?  How did your promo work? How was the video received?

If you haven’t shown the video, please take the time to watch it now, and let me know how you would promote it to YOUR neighbors (work group, classroom)!

 You can go right to YouTube to watch it now: http://youtu.be/5VcSwejU2D0

A big part of our sharing these posts is to get MORE information to MORE people in such a way that they will INCORPORATE it into their daily lives.

It’s a big challenge . . . so I’d appreciate any suggestions or comments you have.

Thanks in advance!

Virginia Nicols
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

If you’ve been following this blog for the past several weeks you know that we’re big on coordinating Personal Survival Plans with Business Emergency Planning.

The reasoning is simple . . .

Businesses depend on their Employees and Employees depend on their Employers.

But it’s pretty well known that most small businesses don’t have adequate Emergency Response Plans.  (Only around 67% have any plan at all.)

The future of your business?

Worse, statistics show that following a catastrophe, half of the businesses affected NEVER re-open their doors!

Why are businesses at such high risk?

1. Owner attitude.

First is the attitude of some owners that they’d rather just cope with an emergency when it hits rather than make any plans to prevent or mitigate it. (We have to ask, if this is you or your boss, are you really a business person?)

2. Emotional impact.

A second factor to business survival is that a major emergency has a dual emotional impact on employees.

Beyond their direct experience at the workplace, with damage and possible injuries, is the safety of their family members who may have been affected, too – but are spread out in the community somewhere.

Since communications are likely to be disrupted, employees will want to leave the workplace immediately to check on their loved ones. Once they disappear, the business has little chance of maintaining critical functions.

Improve the odds: integrate personal emergency planning with business survival planning.

Anything the business principals can do to facilitate employees’ family and neighborhood emergency planning will work to the benefit of all concerned.

One way to begin is by making sure that all employees have adequate Personal Family Survival Plans. This includes:

• Personally-tailored survival kits at home
• Kits at work and/or in their cars
• Communication Plans for family members.

Take advantage of holiday timing.

Now might be a way to kick-start this by seizing on the holiday spirit.

Since we do not advocate buying pre-made, one-size-fits-all, survival kits — which typically include a lot of useless (or low quality) items – we strongly recommend that you consider getting them started with an empty backpack like this one from Amazon. It is big enough, but not too big, and has the advantage of opening from the top to give easy access to everything inside.  And if your company gift policy limits employee gifts to a maximum of $25, you’re in luck!  (Click on the image to get full details, price, etc.  Different colors have different prices.)

As a gift, the survival kit meets important criteria.

1. It’s meaningful.

Every step that an employer can take to help employees prepare their own personal disaster plan will be meaningful for both.

2. It’s personal.

Some people really like clothing with logos, or parties, but others don’t appreciate those gifts at all! Candy? Cheese? Wine? These all depend on people’s personal tastes.

The survival kit is a backpack waiting to be filled with items that the employee chooses!

How to add value to this gift.

The business can use the survival kit to kick-start a more in-depth discussion of preparedness. Setting up an emergency supplies fair at lunch or after work, for example, can improve the odds of employees actually building their kits.

The business can do even more by adding an item to go into the kit – for example, a flashlight or solar-powered or hand-crank radio. Here’s a link to our updated list of the top 10 survival kit items.

And an additional benefit. . .

If your business is one of the 37% of businesses without any business continuation plan at all, this whole campaign could be the impetus to get a company plan started!

If this idea makes sense, you can head directly to Amazon to take a look. Here’s the link: Fuel Top Loader Cargo Backpack (Black)

And if you want to talk over some ideas of how best to present the backpacks to your employees, or how to speak to your employer about providing them to the workforce — just give us a call.  We have a lot of good experience with “employee gifts” that we will be happy to share!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

P.S. I mean that about the call!

What are the chances?

A little over two years ago I wrote for the first time about “active shooter events.”  Yesterday I saw in a recent FBI report such events have doubled in the past seven years.

And more than 2/3 of them take place at businesses or schools.

Do you work, or do you know people who work in office settings? Are you a student, or do you know students?

If so, do they know what to do if they suddenly find themselves in the midst of a live shooter event, or even hear shots?

Over in five minutes or less.

Link to this video below.

Two thirds of active shooter events are over in less than 5 minutes, and one-third are over in less than 2 minutes.

This means If you find yourself in such an event, you have to make QUICK decisions.

Freezing or waffling or screaming are NOT good responses, and in fact may get you killed!

The City of Houston, with the assistance of a Homeland Security Grant, created a training video that is really worth watching. We saw it first at city hall, shown and discussed by our local police department.

The video seems to have become somewhat of a standard for how to respond – and my recommendation today is that you make sure your co-workers have seen it.

The Standard — Run, Hide, Fight: Surviving an active shooter event

 Run, Hide, Fight shows a simulated event taking place in an office setting.  The whole video runs only 6 minutes.

 CAUTION: Although the action is simulated, it contains some intense scenes.  Prepare your audience before showing it.

You can view the video on YouTube at:  http://youtu.be/5VcSwejU2D0?hd=1

The FBI report mentioned above has not gone unchallenged. Criminologist James Alan Fox at Northeastern University in Boston points to the fact that there is no official tracking mechanism for active shooting and mass shooting events. And USA Today’s separate report showed different totals based on their own news sources.

For this Advisory, it doesn’t really matter whether the FBI’s definitions or totals correspond to USA Today’s. What is important is to know how to respond  or even prevent such an event.

Can such events be prevented?

Of course, prevention would be the most desirable option. As someone in a work situation, here are some statistics from the 64 incidents documented by the FBI that should give you pause for thought:

• All but six of the shooters were male, nearly always acting alone.
• In about 10% of the incidents, male shooters targeted current and former wives and girlfriends.
• Other family members were targeted almost as often.
• Almost all of the shooters had a “real or perceived, deeply held personal grievance.”
• Shooters were inspired by and copied other attacks.

Are there warnings?

As we have learned, many – although certainly not all – shooters have been identified by family, fellow students or co-workers as exhibiting disturbing behavior well before they go on their killing spree. Even psychologists or other professionals have known of these people’s troubles.

Unfortunately, most people do not say anything for fear of civil lawsuits or for fear of being branded alarmists.

Take a look at your own school or workplace. Are you all watching out for fellow students or co-workers?  Are you aware of some of the most common triggers for violence, such as divorce, financial problems, or other legal issues? Do you have someone to whom you can report unusual or threatening behavior without fear of reprisal?

You may not be able to stop a shooter event. However, you may be able to save lives by making sure everyone knows the survival principles illustrated in Run, Hide, Fight.

The principles aren’t difficult, but having them top of mind could make all the difference.

Share the video!

We are planning to show the video in two weeks as part of our regular neighborhood emergency planning meeting. Some of the audience members will be very senior citizens; it will be interesting to see how they react.  I’ll report on how the showing goes!

And if you show it to your CERT team or your co-workers or classmates, let us know what questions it brings up.  We want to share every good idea we can. Here’s the link to the video again, http://youtu.be/5VcSwejU2D0?hd=1

Virginia 
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

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In earlier Advisories we’ve talked about how best to communicate during an emergency when the power is out. Here’s the likely drill:

1. First, try an old-fashioned landline; it may work when your rove-a-phone doesn’t.
2. Try your cellphone. But if lines are overloaded, you won’t get through there, either.
3. You’re down to option #3, a text message. Because it requires so little bandwidth, it may get through. But if cell towers are down, too? No luck.

So what’s the one phone that is most likely to ALWAYS get through?

You guessed it – a satellite phone!

The sat phone bypasses wires and towers altogether, shooting straight up to one of the satellite networks positioned 500 to 1,000 miles above the earth.  Given their position, the satellites are seldom affected by storms and thus won’t be impacted by whatever has hit your local community.

I thought I’d really only seen satellite phones in the movies. Typically, they were boxy and big, with an awkward antenna. And they seemed to appear mostly in the hands of the government, military or quasi-military, and usually on a ship somewhere.

Over the past few years, however . . .

sat phone technology has become refined and phones are now found in the hands of civilians around the world.  (So I may have seen one without realizing it!)

There are a number of companies offering the service, with phones that are now not much bigger than your cell phone. (You can see two of the most popular, the Inmarsat IsatPhone Pro Satellite Phone and the Iridium Extreme 9575 Satellite Phone at Amazon. Each looks to be about half-again as long as a typical cell phone, and to weigh about twice as much.)

Different services, high prices.

Although the different networks work differently, and have different coverage and quality, they do have one thing in common:  a relatively high price.

To buy the phone, expect to pay between $500 and $1500.  That’s just for the phone itself. You can pay more to get more features, like GPS, tracking, Bluetooth and WiFi capabilities. Most basic models allow you to send and receive text as well as email messages.

In addition, you need to pay for airtime.  You can prepay for the time or you can buy a monthly contract. Satellite airtime can be less expensive than cellular roaming rates, or a whole lot more (up to $10 a minute!), depending on which service you have. So, it’s back to knowing in advance just what you need the phone for!

Other things to keep in mind:

• A satellite phone won’t work inside a building. It needs access to the sky in order to “find” the satellite.
• The antenna needs to be extended, so you can’t put the phone in your pocket and expect to know when you’re receiving a call.
• Phone numbers seem to be more complicated. It reminds me of the work-arounds we used to see, where people dialed a local number to get to a trunk line and then another number to get to their desired party.
• There may be dead spots, depending on where you find yourself. Trees, jungles, buildings and mountains can block signals.
• Audio quality may not be as good as what you’re used to.

Even with all these imperfections, satellite phones have become standard equipment for business and for governments. A temporary rental (day, week or month) is easily managed over the internet, with the phone shipped right to you at home. Again, read carefully to be sure you get the accessories and the air-time bundle you need.

When it comes to emergency response, you may want a satellite phone for a particular period of time (say you’re going on a trip), for a season, or all the time.

It’s the ultimate in communications reliability.

As you consider your emergency communications needs, don’t overlook this technology. It could be the insurance you want. (Paying $6.50 for a minute of hearing your child’s voice – priceless!)

(My thanks to author Marc Weber Tobias, whose article in Forbes was the basis for much of what I have written here.)

Virginia

Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. If you have used a satellite phone, let us know your experience!

f course, you hope nothing will ever happen.

And it’s painful to imagine yourself, a loved one or a co-worker buried in darkness under debris, fighting to stay alive long enough to be found.

Almost too painful to contemplate.

But if you’ve watched the news, you know that this has been a reality for dozens, even hundreds of people this year alone!

It’s also a reality that most lives that can be saved will be saved by neighbors or co-workers in the first 15-30 minutes.  In a big disaster, First Responders are simply overwhelmed.

In a big disaster, you and the people around you become the First Responders whether you like it or not!

When asked, about half the American public says they have considered all this and that they are prepared with a plan for disaster.

When questioned a bit more, though . . .

Even prepared families admit to a number of flaws in their planning.

How about you?

Flaw number one – Doing only the minimum.

. . . like storing some water and food at home and letting it go at that.

If this applies to you, perhaps you have the notion that bad things only happen to OTHER people???

The top three emergency supplies most commonly overlooked:

• Medicines for at least 10 days
• Emergency Communications for when phones are out
• Light to see by at night.

Remember, when the electricity goes, phones don’t work, your cell phone can’t be recharged, there’s no internet, no heating, no lighting, no gas for the car, no ATMs, no cash registers at the market . . . the list goes on. Water and food are just the start of what you’ll need.

Flaw number two – Not thinking about where you’ll actually be when the disaster hits.

Where will your children be, where will other family members be?  How and when will you make it home?

There’s a really good chance that when the disaster hits you won’t be at home where your emergency supplies are stored!

Take a moment to think about your day:

At 7 a.m., where are your family members? What about at 8? At 9? Have they arrived at work or at school? Are any of them on the road? When do they start heading home again? How will they manage if they get home and you don’t?

Flaw number three – Ignoring planning at your work.

Statistics show that 3 out of 4 small business owners don’t even have an emergency preparedness plan. Without a plan, after a disaster half those businesses will fail and take the jobs of their employees down with them.

Other stats are even more sobering:

“If the company can’t get back to work within five days, there’s a 90% chance you’ll all be out of work within a year!”

This applies to an at-home or part-time business as much as to a full-fledged enterprise with employees.

Does the place you work have a plan to . . .

• Take care of employee safety and survival?
• Help employees connect with family members?
• Maintain essential functions if the building can’t be used?

These are only three of the possible flaws in a plan. As you can imagine, every person’s plan is somewhat different.

What’s the solution?

Take it a step at a time. When it comes to emergency preparations for the family, start with one of the simple Top 10 Lists like this one. And make sure you have completed a Family Communications Plan. At work, get the conversation started using our simple flyer.

Follow up. Get these resources now and make sure you won’t be blamed for obvious flaws in your plan.

Or worse, hear one of your family members say, “Why didn’t you do something to protect us?”

When the emergency hits it will be too late to make any corrections.