Category: Neighborhood groups

For nearly 20 years we have been a part of our Neighborhood Emergency Response Group. Here’s a historical photo to show some of our smiling faces!

During these 20 years we have dutifully collected the items that belong in a home that’s well-prepared. We have also learned a lot. In particular,

• What disasters to expect given where we live (Southern California)
• When and how our local government is likely to react (See those government officials in the photo?!)
• Who we can count on when “the sh*t hits the fan.”

One simple sentence pretty much sums it up:

In a big emergency, it’s our neighbors who will be the true First Responders.

Now, our particular threats – in likely order – are power outage, wildfire, and earthquake. And in just the past two years I’ve reported on how we’ve been impacted by all three! (You can click on the links to see some of that reporting!)

Fortunately, our neighborhood hasn’t been physically damaged. We haven’t had to evacuate. But throughout, our Neighborhood Emergency Response Group has continued to train, to educate and to watch out for neighbors.

The COVID-19 pandemic has re-charged our neighborhood group.

I’ve written over the past couple of weeks about our neighborhood activities associated with facemasks, food distribution, etc.

Today, I want to talk about a renewed role for one of our favorite pieces of equipment: our walkie-talkies!

We have used our walkie-talkies lately more than usual!

• For last week’s drive-thru food pick-up, our traffic control volunteers used their walkie-talkies to manage the cars as they lined up, make decisions about how to direct traffic at intersections, and, ultimately, when to stand down.
• In checking on neighbors and doing “senior shopping,” Joe and I have used walkie-talkies to coordinate our shopping routes and progress.
• At our monthly “walkie-talkie roll call,” I was able to give everyone the latest news via walkie-talkie, handle some questions from the group, and make plans for an upcoming test – in fact, it became a virtual meeting with attendees calling in from front porches all around the neighborhood!

If you have ever thought about adding walkie-talkies to your emergency supplies, now might be a perfect time. You can order them online (be sure to get plenty of batteries) and test at home with family members. 

Now don’t be fooled. The radios that you see Police and Fire Fighters using are not the simple walkie-talkies that we use in our neighborhood emergency response group. But simple or more expensive, all walkie-talkies have one great advantage:

When you talk to your group via walkie-talkie, every person hears the same thing at the same time!

• If your “group” is your neighborhood emergency response group, everyone on the same channel is brought up to date at once. They all hear the same instructions.
• If your “group” is your family, they all hear the same call to dinner – or the same call for help. (And everyone hears their answer, too!)

We have used walkie-talkies for years – on hikes, when shopping, attending conventions, trying to back up a stubborn trailer into a tricky camping space!. So much easier than having to dial, wait for the phone to connect, listen to ringing, waiting for someone to answer. A walkie-talkies provides is instant communication.

• Yes, the signal doesn’t carry very far – it’s not like a cellphone. (You have to test.)
• And yes, you need to take your turn to talk. (Only one person can talk at a time.)
• And yes, you’ll probably want to learn some of the of the “lingo” like “Say again” and “Over.”

And yes, walkie-talkies are fun!

If walkie-talkies are something you should look into please head over to our WALKIE-TALKIE REVIEWS page.

You’ll find key questions there to help you decide what you really need. We’ve added and updated everything for 2020 – without any idea of how valuable these social tools would become this year.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

April – Month of Action

I keep hearing neighbors say, “If only I could be doing something to help others!”

I feel the same way, because this staying at home gets mighty tiresome. So I turned to one of my favorite resources: Google Alerts.

(Anyone who writes for a living or for a hobby is always looking for resources – history, current news, people in the news, etc. So we all know Google Alerts.)

One of my alerts tracks the expression “CERT.” And I have been collecting story after story about how CERT teams are being activated to help others in their communities.

Are you familiar with CERT?

By now you are likely to be familiar with CERT, but if not, here’s your chance to find out more. Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) volunteers have taken a national course in citizen emergency response sponsored by FEMA. The actual training is delivered locally by your city or county. It’s a 20 hour course, usually free or at low cost, and it covers basics of emergency management, first aid, fire safety, disaster psychology, etc. Trainers usually come from the local police and fire departments.

The training is meant to educate volunteers so they know what to expect and how to respond to help their community for the first 72 or so hours after a big disaster. Why 72 hours? Because that’s how long it might take for professional First Responders to get to you! (I will repeat what our Fire Department says to us regularly. “In a big emergency you are not high on our priority list.”)

Here’s a short YouTube video about CERT.

CERT training is valuable – and fun! Joe and I were part of our city’s 3^rd graduating class, back in 2001. They are now up to Class 78!  (It’s been cancelled for the time being, as you can imagine.)

One you’ve graduated, you are encouraged to continue to support your community in various activities. For example our CERT team has been called upon to search for lost citizens (at night). We have spread a message about auto theft in a particular neighborhood. And we support our police and fire departments in a variety of outreach events every year.

With the coronavirus creating new needs, CERT teams are being activated all across the country.

Here are just a few of the articles I have captured on my Google Alerts about CERT volunteers helping others in their communities.

• Longmont (CO) CERT members are hosting a mask and glove drive for workers on the front lines of the coronavirus.
• In Nebraska, the Hall County CERT has been helping with Strategic National Stockpile Hubs.
• The Hall County CERT teams have also been called up to assist in county elections, where regular poll works have been lost.
• New Jersey CERT volunteers are helping train food distribution workers in safety measures as groceries are collected in local food pantries.
• CERT volunteers are serving in support roles at the Emergency Operations Center of Stafford County (VA). They are also staffing at the county’s PPE drop-off center.
•  In Walton County (FL), CERT members are helping with a drive-thru food distribution program.
• Hoboken (NJ) residents are able to call for an appointment for testing, thanks to the CERT volunteers staffing the call center.
• CERT volunteers are providing traffic control for a drive-thru testing clinic in Fairbanks (AK).
• In New York City, CERT volunteers are assisting in food distribution programs, canvassing senior centers and tracking and distributing sanitary supplies for childcare and early childhood centers. They are also helping deliver individual grocery and pharmacy necessities.

In each of these cases, their community called upon vetted CERT volunteers to provide essential support.

In some communities, CERT groups have not been formally “activated” but they find ways to help others anyway!

Because CERTs have skills, training and are by definition leaders, they are finding ways to volunteer without it being a formal effort.

• Last week, for example, two CERT groups in our Southern California area were invited to participate in a PPE collection by donating extra personal supplies.  (You may have received the notice I sent out about that.)
• Individual CERT volunteers supported a “face shield assembly” project set up by a local Rotary club.
• Here in our neighborhood CERT grads have been sewing face masks for seniors and helping direct traffic for a drive-thru food distribution program sponsored by a local church.
• And you’ve heard about our CERT volunteers doing telephone outreach to neighbors.

The point of all this?

You don’t have to be a “member” of any group to find a way to help others during this crisis.

And you don’t have to necessarily be physically strong, or have to commit to hours on your feet. Take your time to find a volunteer job you can manage and enjoy.

If you do, you won’t have to go around saying, “If only I could do more to help others!”

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. And when we are “back to the new normal,” consider taking the CERT training in your own city. You, your family and your neighborhood will all benefit for years to come! (Here’s another description of CERT written by one of our readers who went through Hurricane Florence.

April – Month of Action

Dear Emergency Plan Guide Friend,

Normally I try to make my Advisories as comprehensive as possible, adding information that may be new or at least different about various aspects of preparedness. It’s a challenge and usually rather fun!

This week is different. I have spent the last couple of days trying to keep up with the coronavirus — which is new to ALL of us. I’ve been answering questions from neighbors. (Some of those questions were really off the wall!)

Then today I was asked to write a simple memo that would give everyone in our community some basic facts and some sensible recommendations we could all agree with. That memo is the basis for this Advisory.

I expect that you already know everything in this coronavirus memo.

But your neighbors may not! So here are my recommendations:

1. Download a copy of my memo. It is a 4-page Word document written in a big font and very simple language. Here’s the link.
2. Make changes to customize it for YOUR neighbors or your family.*
3. Pass it along or duplicate and pass it out to everyone on your block.

This isn’t the last we’ve heard about this rapidly expanding disease. I don’t know when we’ll want to address the topic again. But I felt obligated to share as best I can — and I’m counting on you to spread the word more widely.

The more everyone knows, the safer we all will be!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. I make reference in the coronavirus memo to a basic list of emergency supplies for sheltering in place. I assume you already have such a list but if you want to use ours as a starter, here’s a link to it.

* When I think about “customizing” the coronavirus memo, I think about adding a logo or picture to the cover, putting references in the body of the memo to your neighborhood or town, and adding a signature and phone number on the last page. Make it yours!

I was running late – to my own community meeting!

But we’d done some good planning, and by the time I got to the community room, a handful of volunteers were already digging into the oh-so-carefully-packed box of supplies. Name tags went out onto one table along with colored pens; handouts went onto another.  Two people were pinning photos from past events all across the back of the room. And refreshments had magically appeared on a table in the corner. (“Make people walk past the photo display to get to the cookies.”)

I saw immediately that our guest speakers had arrived before me, too!

But my back-up host had directed them to the electrical set-up, the microphone and projector were humming, and as neighbors started arriving, fire extinguishers in hand, everyone was standing about just casually chatting!

What a relief!  All I had to do was grab that microphone, take a deep breath, and gather my thoughts for the introductions! Here I am, a few minutes later, double-teaming with our fire captain.

What was behind this special community meeting on fire extinguishers?

Pretty simple. We’ve had two fires recently in our neighborhood. In one, the whole house was engaged before the fire department arrived. (No person injured, but two pets died.)  In the other, smoke filled the kitchen but an observant neighbor noticed, grabbed a fire extinguisher, ran across the street and stopped the fire before any real damage was done.

The obvious lesson:

“If you can catch a fire right away, and you use the right equipment, you can put it out yourself.”

After the most recent fire, we took a poll of neighbors.

1. “Do you have a fire extinguisher?”
2. “Are you confident you could put out a fire in your house with your extinguisher?”
3. “Have you ever even USED an extinguisher?”

Too many “no” answers! 

So we contacted our local fire department for help.

Not only were they willing to come do a special community meeting on home fire extinguishers, but they offered a magnificent surprise – a chance for us to actually practice putting out a fire.

But not a real fire.

We had the chance to train using a laser-driven fire extinguisher simulator!

First, we went over the basics of fire extinguishers.

In fact, we had invited everyone to BYOE — BRING YOUR OWN EXTINGUISHER – and it made a big difference! 

Many people had never even taken their extinguishers out of the box! Hardly any knew what sort of fire their extinguisher was good for. And I don’t think any had searched out the date of manufacture.

Imagine if you will a room full of people, many clutching red and white fire extinguishers in their laps, as our fire captain went over the basics using a power point presentation. There were MANY interruptions, much squinting to read the fine print, and MANY questions before it was over. (Remember, this meeting took place in a senior retirement community.)

• Classifications tell you what kind of fire this extinguisher will put out – A, B, C, D and K.  In our group, nearly all were A, B, C.
• What’s actually INSIDE the extinguisher? Again, for our audience, probably dry chemical that comes out as a powder to smother the fire.
• How long is the extinguisher good for? “Check the date.” (This became an embarrassment and pretty humorous as people found the dates and called them out. The oldest extinguisher in the room dated to . . . 1987!)  The recommendation from our fire department – “Check ‘em often and replace after 5 years to be sure it will work when you need it.”
• Where and how to store it? (Designated place, clearly visible. Turn it upside down and hit it with your hand to loosen the powder.)
• Other comments – Only attempt to put out a fire you can control. Have an escape route. Call 911. and many more . . .

Then it was time for the SIMULATOR training!

The head of our local CERT training stepped up to demonstrate the equipment. The digital “flame” on the screen was very bright, very realistic! The green dot from the laser was easily visible.

Before she was completely finished, people were already lining up to try it! (What a relief. As meeting planner you just never know what kind of reaction you’ll get!)

PASS – not so easy to remember when you have an extinguisher in your hands and the clock is ticking.

Our fire captain had gone through the steps to extinguish a fire.

And our CERT trainer had gone over them again, demonstrating two or three times just how the equipment works.

Still, when people came up to try, sometimes they forgot! They dropped the pin. The extinguisher was quite heavy and some couldn’t hold it and squeeze at the same time. A couple squeezed before they aimed!

Everyone was terribly engaged. Some were anxious. All were watching VERY closely.

More than half the people in the audience tried the simulator. And everyone succeeded in putting out their fire. (A few did need a couple of tries.)

More important, as our CERT trainer observed, every one walked away with new-found confidence.

As the community meeting on fire extinguishers broke up, several people told me they wanted to learn more about our city’s CERT training and others wanted to join our local neighborhood response team. (We have no requirement for CERT training.)

As we gathered up all the stray handouts and took down the displays, we were very satisfied at the outcome.

Could any meeting be more successful?!

Why yes, because that very evening I got several thank-you emails with many positive comments.

At 9 a.m. the following day our office manager wanted copies of anything that was left over “because people have already been coming in asking about it.” A bystander in the office volunteered, “I’m going to buy a new extinguisher for myself, and two for my daughter.”

Then the manager added, “I have never seen people come out of a meeting with so much excitement. They were talking and waving.  They were laughing. They were energized!”

I think you can agree, somewhere along the line this training will pay off. I hope you can add a similar meeting to YOUR group’s schedule!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. I’ll be adding this to my next collection of published Meeting Ideas! Let me know if you want to be on the pre-publication list!

The more I learn about preparedness, the more I see that genuine security for your family depends on far more than you alone can do. In other words, preparedness takes a village, with every member taking a role.

So as we head into 2020, let’s take a look at some of the options you have to improve your situation and the situation of the people around you, too.

You must take the initiative to keep your family safe.

Here at Emergency Plan Guide we try not to discriminate between young or old, single or married, urban or rural preppers. However, we do aim our outreach to the kinds of friends who are looking for “practical, simple and sensible every-day actions” they can take to become better prepared. (By and large, these friends don’t plan to depend solely on the government or other “authorities.”)

In September, FEMA’s 2018 annual National Household Survey came out. I was interested to see how our preparedness objectives fit in with what the survey reports!

According to the survey (5,000 people across the country), 57% of us have taken at least 3 or more “preparedness actions.”

FEMA identifies six basic preparedness actions.

Below is a list of what FEMA counts as “actions.” How many of these actions did you take in 2019?

1. Gather and store 3-days’ worth of emergency supplies
2. Talk with others about getting prepared
3. Attend a local meeting
4. Seek information on preparedness
5. Participate in a drill
6. Make an emergency plan

Did you take all six actions in 2019? If not, what can you add to your “to-do” list for 2020?

What keeps us from doing all six?

If you read more deeply into the results of FEMA’s study, you’ll discover that of the people interviewed, 97% admitted that at least one disaster could impact where they live – but only 47% of them feel confident that they can prepare effectively.

47%! That’s nearly half! What stands in their way? The study quotes the same “reasons” we’ve heard for years: (1) perceived hassle (2) anticipated cost (3) don’t know exactly what to do.

(When I look at this list, I see “reasons” we give for not doing a lot of things! For example, I can easily apply all three of those reasons to buying or selling a car, changing dentists, applying for a new bank account, etc.!)

Getting more people involved depends on what’s going on in your neighborhood.

If you look back at that list of preparedness actions, you’ll see that half of them can be accomplished by working on your own – but the other half require participation by others! Yup, that the “preparedness takes a village” aspect!

And here’s where Emergency Plan Guide stands out from most other resources. We’ve written community preparedness into every one of the books in our Disaster Survival Series.

You want your neighbor to be ready to help.

After all, that neighbor is likely to be YOUR first responder in an emergency!

The FEMA list cites the value of “talking with others,” “attending local meetings” and “participating in a drill.” Somebody has to manage these – they don’t just happen by themselves.

CERT training, offered by local emergency management office, usually becomes the basis for neighborhood readiness. But the next step requires local community leaders to step up. Our Emergency Preparedness Meeting Ideas book is aimed at those leaders, helping them in planning and putting on educational neighborhood meetings. (This is our best-selling book, by the way!)

What role can you take in 2020 to support your local neighborhood?

If your job disappears, all your personal work may be for naught.

The past several years we have seen whole communities decimated and destroyed by flood, storm, and fire. Even if people escape with their lives, when businesses are destroyed a lot more “goes up in smoke:”

• Employees no long have a source of income.
• Business owners lose their investments.
• Suppliers and advisers lose a client.
• Customers lose a valued product or service.
• The community loses vitality – and tax revenue.

Our book Emergency Preparedness for Small Business helps business owners make plans — for protecting their business in the face of a disaster and getting their business back up and running if the disaster actually hits.

Business preparedness depends on a whole team.

The concept of teamwork really stands out when it comes to business continuity planning. In the book we spend time on the professional team of advisers that a business typically has in place – but may not have called upon to help it build a plan!

These advisers include:

• Skilled and experienced employees (and not necessarily just upper management)
• Business attorney (who can assess contractual liabilities associated with disaster and, in particular, liability associated with not having a plan)
• Business accountant (helps identify value of equipment, business activities, etc. and thus helps set priorities for protection and recovery)
• Business banker (prepared to offer emergency funds, extend loans, etc.)
• Business insurance agent (with added expertise in Business Interruption insurance, Extra and/or Contingent Expense coverage or riders)

If you are a business owner or a member of management where you work, how would you assess your business continuity plan? Have professional business advisers been involved in putting it together? Is it time for a review of your plan?

What’s your plan of action for preparedness in 2020?

In the midst of everything else that is happening, can you commit to improving the resilience of the “village” around you?

This Advisory lays out several broad suggestions. I hope you’ll take up at least one of them!

In the meanwhile, we’ll keep examining options in more detail here at Emergency Plan Guide. We would very much appreciate your help in that – in the form of questions, comments, and suggestions. Here’s to a very busy 2020!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. I would also welcome your offer to write a guest advisory! Do you have something you’d like to share? Let me know and we’ll talk about the best way to get your good info out to “our” village here!

You’ve heard that jarring emergency alert sound, coming on the TV or on your cell phone, right? Something like BRRRRRRRKKKKKKK. BRRRRRRRKKKKKKK. Usually, the message that follows is: “This is a test.” Or it could be an AMBER alert about a kidnapped child.

Ever stop to think about where these emergency alerts are actually coming from? These days there could be several sources. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Emergency Alerts at the federal level

We’ll start with a simplified description of the federal system. If you want more detail, head to the Federal Communications Commission site. From there, you can go deeper and ever deeper into the subject.

The Emergency Alert System (EAS) was first set up in 1997.

Its purpose was to allow the President to speak to the American public during a national emergency.  The program is run jointly by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). Some 77 radio stations across the country, equipped with special back-up capability, send out EAS messages. EAS messages can also go out over TV, cable TV, wireless cable, satellite and video.

In 2012 a second level of emergency messaging went live.

The Wireless Emergency Alert system (WEA) can send messages to specific locations (“geo-targeting”) and devices using – you got it – wireless technology. If your cellphone is WEA enabled, you may get an emergency alert – but the person standing next to you, whose phone is NOT enabled, may not receive it!

Action item: Find out if your cellphone is WEA-capable. Not all wireless service providers offer WEA on all their devices. https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/wireless-emergency-alerts-wea

And be sure that in addition to your cellphone you have at least one (preferably more) working emergency radios! For a thorough discussion of the different kinds and the features they offer, please take a look at Emergency Plan Guide’s own Emergency Radio Reviews. (You’ll see photos of some of the radios we own!)

OK, those are basics for widespread, official alert messages. If you hear one, you’ll probably pay attention. Fortunately, they don’t come too often.

Emergency Communications at the local level

A second source of emergency alerts is likely to be your town or city. Every day, for example, communities experience fires, security breaches, power outages, accidents, and severe weather. These localized emergencies may impact many people – residents, transportation services, health care facilities, businesses, etc. 

Cities, towns and counties are required to have emergency management organizations and to develop emergency management plans for the continuity of the government and the safety of residents. And many cities set up programs to help their citizens be more prepared in emergencies – programs like CERT.

Examples of some local emergency alert systems

So how do cities let people know that there’s a local emergency? It all depends . . . For example, here are some of the city/county systems I came across in preparing this article:

• Santa Clara County (CA) sends text messages to residents via AlertSCC.
• San Francisco has AlertSF as well as a public loudspeaker system.
• The City of Pittsfield (MA) has installed CodeRED that can send out phone, text and email messages to thousands of its residents, in minutes.

Here in our city we have a similar, county-wide alert system. One of the challenges – unlike EAS or WEA, which go out automatically — people have to actively sign up to get on the local alert lists in order to be notified! (Sadly, since our system is relatively new, only a small percentage of people have gotten around to signing up.)

Action Item: Find out if your city or county has an emergency alert system. How comprehensive is it? (phone, email, computer, etc.) Do you have to sign up to get the emergency messages?

Emergency Communications where you work

A third source of emergency alerts could be your work. It it experiences an explosion, a power outage, a crash, data breach, an active shooter incident, etc., how will employees find out what’s happening? How will they know what to do? What about families, customers, neighboring businesses, and the media?

Not having a plan for managing crisis communications is a recipe for disaster. (At the very least, legal disaster! The most likely charge if someone is damaged?  Negligence.)

What to look for in a business crisis communications system

So what should your crisis communications plan include? Start with this basic list to see what you might need:

1. Your messages need to get out without delay – even if the disaster happens at night or on the weekend. This means having a number of pre-written messages “on the shelf” that crisis team members can readily access. In particular, any messages that might reach the media should be crafted in advance.
2. Messages need to be able to reach everyone, one way or another because one way may not work! This means email, phone, and text at a minimum. Messages need to be short and simple (no acronyms) and, if necessary, in more than one language.
3. People need to be able to respond – that they are safe, that they have evacuated, that someone is injured at a given location, etc.
4. Can you target your messages to just one location, one level of management, etc.? Just as you want to reach everyone who is in the danger zone, you don’t want to necessarily upset people miles away.
5. Can you make the system work at the critical time? Is it easy to learn and easy to operate? (Many companies use their crisis communications systems for more everyday purposes, just to be sure more people know how it functions.)

Action item: So how well does your current business emergency communications system stack up?

If you think some improvements might be in order, follow up with these two resources.

• Capterra reviews all kinds of business software. Here is a link to their 2019 list of emergency notification software programs. Fifty-one different programs/services are reviewed!  (One of the services on this list is used by my own community association. One-way messages only, to my home phone.) You’ll get a good idea of what’s available by reviewing even a few.  https://www.capterra.com/emergency-notification-software/
• I went further and took a free, half-hour personal “guided tour” of one of the systems. Preparis was recently purchased by Agility Recovery, a company I’ve admired for years. If you are truly in the market for emergency communications system, I recommend you contact Agility and ask for a demonstration. Watching how the system works, and being able to ask questions, will give you a much better understanding of just how it might work for you and your company.

I encourage you to give your company the tools it needs to protect employees, property and reputation by having a stronger emergency communications plan.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. You know that sound that you hear as part of an AMBER alert? It’s called a “header burst” and is followed by an “attention tone.” These sounds were selected because they are so jarring and unpleasant! Oh, and by the way, advertisers or entertainers or anyone who misuses the tone can be sanctioned and fined.  (I read about one fine of $1 million!)

A year ago . . .

About a year ago, Joe and I came out with four books aimed at helping people and their communities get better prepared for emergencies. (Have you published a book? If so, you know it’s a proud moment!)

Now, people do buy our books. (Thank you!) But here’s what we hear from too many of them . . .

“We love reading all this good information about getting prepared. But we just can’t find time to make consistent progress!”

Hmm. Joe and I are nothing if not committed! So over this past summer we worked like crazy and as a result . . .

As of this week . . .

We have added four NEW books to the shelf that are meant to make it easier to get prepared! Check out THIS image!

Yes, to get the value, you’ll still have to read. But here’s the difference. These are WORKBOOKS!

Workbooks make it easier to get prepared.

The content of each workbook follows the flow of its companion book. The workbook actually often refers to its companion book for reminders, lists, background info, etc.

But in contrast to the books, most of the material in the workbook is presented in the form of simple questions with space for you to fill in YOUR answers!  We encourage you to doodle, draw arrows and exclamation points! Here are some examples of questions taken from the Apartment Communities version.

Who will benefit most from the workbooks?

If you find it challenging to get started, or to keep making progress, or if your group is stuck – one of the book/workbook combos may be exactly what you need to break the log-jam!

Five reasons to work your way through the workbook questions and fill in answers.

1. Visible progress. You can see progress! (Along with using colored pens or highlighters, I recommend using a bookmark, or folding down the pages as you complete them!)
2. No stress. There are no right answers so you won’t be intimidated.
3. Decisions get made. As you answer questions step by step, you are actually making important decisions based on your circumstances, your family, your budget, etc.
4. Lasting impact. By writing your answers, you are engaging not only your brain but your muscles. (We believe strongly that physically writing things down helps memory and understanding in a way that typing on a computer simply can’t. Joe often works late into the night over a yellow pad.)
5. Compare and confirm. You can share written answers with others in your family or on your team – or compare answers if they are completing the workbook, too. They will be there as a physical record and as proof of your commitment to the process.

What’s the next step?

We invite you to consider a “package deal” (book + companion workbook) for your own household, for neighbors, your emergency response team, your church — any group of people who are looking for help to become better prepared.  

You may want to get the small business book and workbook for your own company, for your employer, for the other businesses in your association.

As you can imagine, there’s more detail on the books at Amazon. Here are the links to each of the books and workbooks. (They haven’t been up at Amazon long enough to be reliably connected with their partners!)

• Emergency Preparedness for Apartment Communities (THE WORKBOOK)
• Emergency Preparedness for Mobilehome Communities (THE WORKBOOK)
• Emergency Preparedness for Homeowner Communities (THE WORKBOOK)
• Emergency Preparedness for Small Business (THE WORKBOOK)

Be in touch!

If you have questions, drop me a line. If you purchase the books, please be kind enough to leave a review at Amazon. And,

If you are working with a community, let us know what challenges you are working on and we’ll try to address them here at Emergency Plan Guide – or create a special checklist or resource document just for you!

As I said above, Joe and I are nothing if not committed to the mission and to our emergency preparedness “tribe!”

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. We have one more book that is a sort of hybrid book/workbook. And it’s the most popular one of all! Here’s a link where you can see the entire collection!

After 20 years of training and writing about disaster preparedness, and with well over 500 articles now under my belt, I discover that some topics keep coming up again and again – in the news media, in questions people ask, and on the various internet sites and in specialty magazines that report on “survival trends.” Thanks to Google Analytics, we can also track which articles are most often viewed on our site, too. Here are our top survival resources!

Here are the 5 most popular topics on our site, with links that will take you immediately to more information.

Are you in the mainstream? Are these among YOUR favorite subjects? Check them out!

1. Emergency Radios and Radio Communications

If there is one topic that stands out, this is it.  In fact, radios and radio communications are twice as popular as anything else we report on!

A radio for your personal survival kit.

Are you ready to buy an emergency radio for yourself or a family member?  Check out our Updated Reviews of Emergency Radios with comments about solar, hand-crank, etc. We’ve added new info about some nifty, palm-sized radios that fit perfectly in a pack, glove box, etc. Most of the radios we discuss are found on Amazon, where prices are as good as they get, and buyer comments are very helpful in selecting the best fit for your needs.

Two-way radio communications for groups.

Interested in how to use walkie-talkie radios effectively for your group, whether it’s your family or a neighborhood response team? Then you need a way to not only listen, but also to speak.

We have used many different models, and review walkie-talkies here.  EmergencyPlanGuide.org also has a number of Advisories on walkie-talkie use:

• Walkie-Talkies for Emergency Neighborhood Communications

If you are serious about building a neighborhood group, each of the books in our Survival Series has a complete discussion and a diagram showing one way to use radio communications, how to assign channels for your different divisions and specialty teams, etc.

 2. Emergency/Survival Kits

We know that some people simply don’t have time to actually build their own kit, so we start with a review of Popular Ready-Made Kits to be found on Amazon.  The purpose of the review is not to recommend any one kit in particular, but to highlight different things to look for as you shop. (Again, please be aware that if you buy something from Amazon through one of our links, we may receive a commission from Amazon. The commission does not influence the price you pay.)

Because every person and family is unique, we recommend strongly that you build your own basic kit, and we have written a booklet to guide you through the various decisions that need to be made.  Once you have the basic kit, add items that fit your climate, your skill and your interest level.

We have also discovered that most people continue to improve their kit by adding specialty items. Some of the most interesting additions:

• Geiger Counter
• Water purification tablets
• Survival Kit Missing Item

 3. Special Preparations for City Dwellers

Much of the “prepper” literature deals with developing skills that allow you to survive by living off the land. For urban or suburban dwellers, particularly people living in apartments or condos, these survival skills need to be adjusted to the realities of the city.

Some of the top survival resources for city dwellers:

• Apartment Survival and Security
• Apartment Living 
• Urban survival tools

4. Emergency Water Supplies

We probably spend more of our time on water than on anything else (even though, as reported above, website visitors seem to prefer reading about radios!). How to store water for an emergency, where to find more water when the emergency hits, and how to protect yourself from contaminated water – these are ongoing challenges that need to be overcome if we are to survive.

A few of the most comprehensive articles focused on water:

• Water, water everywhere
• Collapsible water Bottles
• Lifestraw Personal Water Filter
• Storing water in plastic bottles
• Emergency water supply – Your swimming pool

And finally, one topic unique to EmergencyPlanGuide.org  . . .

5. Counting on Neighbors for Survival

We know that the first people to be there to help in an emergency are the people already there – the neighbor at home next door, or the co-worker at the next desk or in the next room.

With that being the case, we think that the more we all know, the better chance we’ll all have to survive, at least until professional help arrives.

We also know that professional help – police and fire – will be overwhelmed in the aftermath of a widespread disaster, so it may be hours or even days before they do arrive. A strong neighborhood team, ready to take action, just seems to make great sense.

Our 20-year commitment to neighborhood emergency preparedness has been focused primarily on building a neighborhood response team. It has been a labor of love – and yes, a LOT of labor!

The website has many stories about what it’s taken to build the group. You can find many of these stories by heading to the list of categories in the sidebar and clicking on “CERT” or “Neighborhood.”

We have even compiled much of this information into two in-depth resources:

• Emergency Preparedness Meeting Ideas
• Survival Series (One for Apartment Dwellers, one for Mobile Home Communities, and one for Single Family Neighborhoods.  Each has suggestions for building a neighborhood team on the foundation of CERT training)

I hope you’ll find this list of top survival resources helpful, and a reminder of areas in your own planning that may not be as secure as you’d like. Also, if you would like to see more on any aspect of emergency preparedness or disaster recovery, please just let me know!

Virginia and Joe
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

We mean it! Let us know in the comments what topics YOU like to read more about!

One of my favorite sources for preparedness information is the online newsletter, Government Technology.  (It has various sections, including Emergency Management, Cyber Security, Emergency Tech, Cloud, and more.) Two weeks ago the magazine included a report from a local Oklahoma newspaper on the results from a preparedness survey.

The article really struck home and has pushed me to further action here in my own neighborhood! I hope you’ll find it as interesting as I did!

Background to the preparedness survey

OK, swivel your thinking from wherever you are right now to the middle of north-central Oklahoma. Plains, rolling hills. Flooding earlier this year. Consider, specifically, the town of Stillwater.  

(For those who like to know stuff like this, the area was settled in the 1880s and 90s during a series of famous “land rushes.”  Today, it is the 10^th largest city in Oklahoma with about 47,000 inhabitants and is home to Oklahoma State University.)

It turns out that Stillwater put out a “flash-survey” on the topic of emergency preparedness. They sent the survey to citizens who had signed up to participate.

(Note that whenever you have people willing to “self-select” you tend to get more accurate responses.)

And here are some of the survey questions – and answers.

Please think about what YOUR answers would be!

Question: What disasters do you worry about?
Stillwater: Tornados (93% named this as #1!), floods and then earthquakes. Other choices were wildfires, public health emergencies, heat, cold, and terrorist activity. Plus “other” – which was mostly power outages.
Your turn: What disasters to YOU worry about? (Are you being realistic?)

Question: What have you done to prepare? (I assume they provided a list of options to check.)
Stillwater:  Flashlight and extra batteries (81.5%), first aid kit (68%), portable radio (less than half), NOAA weather radio (37%), 3-day supply of food (less than 50%), 3-gallons of water per person (22%). “Have done nothing” (10%).
Your turn: What preparations have YOU made?

Question: Have you signed up for Stillwater’s emergency alert system?
Stillwater: Yes, 45%. Never heard of it, 55%.
Your turn: Have YOU signed up for your local alert system?

Question: What does our community need to do a better job of when it comes to emergency management?
Stillwater: More public trainings or drills; need more public or community tornado shelters.
Your turn: What more should YOUR community be doing? Have you let them know?

So here’s the last question, and it comes not from the Stillwater newspaper, but from Emergency Plan Guide.

Question: What answers would your neighbors give to these survey questions?

What’s the next step?

If you’re not sure what your neighbors’ answers would be, why not put out your own survey so you are working with facts, and not supposition? You can do an online survey, via SurveyMonkey (free if fewer than 10 questions and 100 responses), or on paper.

Some suggestions for designing your survey (based on my years in the marketing world!):

• More than 10 questions will depress response.
• If you make the survey anonymous you’ll get more responses.
• To improve response and capture names and/or emails and build a list – add a deadline with offer of a drawing and prize to the winner. At the very minimum, promise to share results of the survey with participants.

Whether you make it formal or informal, the answers to your survey should serve to help as you plan for upcoming meetings or events for your community.

After all, September is preparedness month – so you could use the survey to get the ball rolling for your team! That’s what we’re planning to do! 

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

P.S. Need some suggestions for questions to include on your survey? SurveyMonkey has a sample survey on their site. I’m not necessarily recommending it but it may help you get started drafting your own. Here’s another sample series of questions from the State of Indiana:

If you need more details of what preparedness options to put on your survey (“Check all that apply.”), the government offers this basic list. We also have an even more complete list here at Emergency Plan Guide.

P.P.S. Thanks to reporter Michelle Charles, who wrote about the survey in the StillwaterNewsPress. Let me know what YOU decide to do with a survey and I’ll pass along to her the impact that her article had, across the country!

By now we’ve all heard the concept of “muscle memory.” That is, if you practice something enough, when called upon your body will remember what to do even if your brain is sidetracked.

Professionals train constantly. They develop all kinds of muscle memory, and every day we hear stories how that training has paid off.

Volunteers, on the other hand, are a different story. When it comes to preparedness training for volunteers within the neighborhood, we have a challenge.

Here is the training challenge as I see it.

• Even in a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training session with the guidance of professional instructors we can TALK about what to do in an emergency medical situation. We can SHOW people how clear airways, check for breathing, and test circulation. We can PRACTICE once or twice with professional supervision.
  
  Then we go home! And we are lucky to get a refresher course on those particular procedures within the next month or even 6 months!

• In our local neighborhood group meetings we don’t have professionally-trained leaders. We depend on our own volunteer members to come up with good ways to prepare and to respond. When we’re lucky, we attract a guest speaker with special credentials.
  
  Then we go home! And we may never hear from that speaker again!

A current LinkedIn discussion group sees the challenge, too.

I participate in a LinkedIn group for emergency managers. There’s a discussion taking place right now about providing enough on-going training for people at different levels of expertise.

In particular, the discussion is focusing on the very audience I mentioned above – the concerned and committed volunteer who may be part of a local community but not part of a formal program.

How can we give these people the chance to develop that all-important “muscle memory?”

Here’s some of what I’ve learned about meeting the training challenge.

Online resources. There are a number of online resources, courses and online videos. We have used many of them in our group. The challenge is having to first find and then sort through them all, site by site and video by video, to find one that fits your group’s level of interest, its budget and is of a quality you’re comfortable with. As we know, there is no easy way to “rate” the quality of ANYTHING online!

Local resources. In our community we occasionally have the opportunity to attend a face-to-face course offered by the Red Cross or a health care organization. Some of these are free; most charge a fee. Some communities are more fortunate in that they have regular such programs offered through a university. (Here are two examples, the first at Columbia and the second at the University of Kansas.  https://ncdp.columbia.edu/practice/training-education/online-face-to-face-training/ and http://rtcil.org/emergencypreparedness/onlinetrainings)

Books. By now, you realize I’ve tried to capture some training ideas in the books I’ve written.  The advantage of books is that they are inexpensive, available everywhere, and eminently portable. The disadvantage – reading about an idea in a book doesn’t train muscle memory! Some dedicated member of the group has to turn the idea into an actual training exercise. (That’s what I try to assist with in Emergency Preparedness Meeting Ideas.)

Training that can actually involve muscle memory is by far the most desirable. For volunteers, it’s still very tough to come by.

But when it comes to emergency preparedness, ANY training is better than none!

You can get started now with some of the resources mentioned above. One thing for sure: There will be no time for training once the disaster hits!

Day 24 of Summer Vacation: A time for some shorter and lighter Advisories as a welcome change-of-pace!