by Virginia S. Nicols
Much of “being prepared” depends on your family background, your life experiences, your budget, your mindset – and other individual characteristics.
When it comes to creating a more prepared community, though, the emphasis shifts. You turn from your own concerns to what neighbors have in common. You figure out how you can work together to improve everyone’s chances of making it through a disaster. Because in an emergency, you are all in it together!
A mobilehome park is a unique community.
That’s why we’ve written Emergency Preparedness for Mobilehome Communities. It’s for people living in classic parks made up of single or double-wide manufactured homes arranged in “spaces.” Depending on the size of the park, it may have common areas that include streets, a community center, swimming pool, RV parking lot, outdoor recreation areas, etc. If the park is large enough, it probably has on-site managers. A park may have families with children or may be restricted to residents who are 55 and older. It may be a fenced or gated community.
Emergency Preparedness for Mobilehome Communities takes all these features into consideration as it lays out a blueprint for . . .
- helping all residents get themselves prepared for emergencies
- organizing a park into teams following Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training offered by FEMA and local governments (usually at little or no cost to participants)
- drafting a written emergency plan for credibility and continuity.
All the books in the Neighborhood Disaster Survival Guide Series are based on our years of personal experience in organizing and emergency planning. Each offers a step-by-step approach to building a more resilient community. Detailed lists, activity reviews and sample materials from our experience will help you customize your approach to your own community.