Tag: emergency

Dear Parent,

Welcome to another exciting school year. Before we allow your child to come to school, we need to know that s/he knows what to do in an emergency.

We don’t have time to fit this information into the regular school curriculum. So if your child is to have a good chance of survival, it’s up to you.

Please sign and return this note so we know your child is properly prepared.

Sincerely,  Your School Administrator

Wow! What if you got this letter from YOUR child’s school? How would you react?

I bet you’d have . . .

Questions for that “School Administrator!”

Here are a few of them:

1. What should my child know about responding to an emergency at school?

2. What emergencies are we talking about?

3. What plans does the school have for protecting my child?

4. Has my child’s teacher received disaster training?

5. What do you expect of me if an emergency happens during the school day?

The sad truth is, many parents do NOT know the answers to these questions. And I wonder, how many school administrators could answer for their school and their teachers?! it’s worth some effort to find out more.

I was inspired to write this post by three things.

• My friend Russell sent me a copy of a booklet passed out at his kids’ school. You’ll see it in the picture. It is packed with valuable information, pulled from a variety of sources. Because it IS so packed, though, no child would ever start reading it. Even a parent would be hard pressed to get through it. The booklet could answer questions 1 and 2 above.

• For the past six weeks, the LinkedIn Group that I participate in has been discussing disaster preparedness in the schools. These are professional trainers and consultants. Their reluctant conclusion? With rare exceptions, schools ignore basic survival skills for students. Some schools would be able to answer questions 3 & 4 above.

• Are schools required to be able to answer our questions? In June 2013 the White House released a guide  for developing emergency operations plans for elementary schools. The guide “incorporates lessons learned from recent incidents, and responds to the needs and concerns voiced by stakeholders following the recent shootings in Newtown and Oak Creek and the recent tornadoes in Oklahoma.”

Here in California, other resources are available through the State Department of Education. As far as requirements, all I could find is that regular fire and earthquake drills are mandatory. Still, a school that takes advantage of the guides and resources mentioned would, in fact, be able to answer all the questions above.

So where does YOUR kid’s school fit? Which of the questions can your school answer? Which CAN’T it answer?

It’s September. Back to School Month PLUS National Preparedness Month. Could there be any better time to find out more?

Virginia Nicols
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

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Show and Tell

At our recent neighborhood meeting, our CERT leader asked me to do a “show and tell” on the LifeStraw® that I have in my emergency supplies. The photo shows what I shared with the group.

My LifeStraw: mouthpiece open at left

The LifeStraw is a tube you suck through (the “straw”) to filter water when you’re out camping or in an emergency.  I discovered it about three years ago after my son became very ill from swallowing water on a hiking trip. (He spent 5 days in hospital; his organs started shutting down due to dehydration.)

LifeStraw features

There are other products that look the same, but the LifeStraw appears to be “the original.” It won awards when it came out in 2005, and was chosen by the U.N. to provide clean drinking water in developing countries. Later was it made available in the U.S. by manufacturer Vestergaard Frandsen. It costs about $20.

The LifeStraw is handy and simple:

• It is small and lightweight, so fits into anyone’s survival kit.
• It requires no batteries or replacement parts.
• It filters up to 1,000 liters – about 265 gallons.

You can stick the straw into a puddle or stream and drink directly, or scoop up water into a bottle and then stick the straw into the bottle. It filters out 99.99% of bacteria (for ex., e coli and salmonella) and protozoa cysts (Giardia), which is what made my son so sick. It does NOT filter out viruses, which are too small to be caught. And it does not make salt-water drinkable.

How to use it

Since there are no chemicals in the straw, the water coming through has no chemical taste. You remove the caps at both ends and sip through the mouthpiece. It takes a good 4-5 pulls to get the water started. To keep the filter clean, you blow back through the straw to unclog it.

You can use the Straw over and over again.  Just keep it clean and let it dry out before you recap the ends.

Here where we live in Southern California, we are not likely to have puddles to drink from in an emergency since we get so little rain! However, in an emergency, we might be forced to look for other sources of water: water heater, toilet tank, or big water barrel. Getting water out of these tanks would likely involve some dirt, grains of rust, sediment, etc. Filtering the water through the LifeStraw would be a reassurance of its quality.

If you or family members live stormy areas or hike or camp a lot, this is a no-brainer addition to your emergency kit. Get more information at Amazon:
LifeStraw Personal Water Filter

Next time: Water from Swimming Pools

I’m on a roll now about water. Next blog will be about how to use SWIMMING POOL WATER in an emergency.  Can you?  Should you? How to treat it first?

Stay tuned.  (If you don’t want to miss that next Advisory, sign up right now on the form below.)

And do check out that LifeStraw. It just feels right.  It makes a great gift!

Virginia Nicols
Your Emergency Plan Guide team