Our usual emphasis is on individual preparedness.

This morning I took stock of the emergency supplies Joe and I have. With the exception of extra batteries, I was pretty well satisfied. Yesterday, a new neighbor announced that she had not only added 2 more gallons of water to her stash but also signed up for an earthquake alert. Our usual emphasis is on this type of individual preparedness. I hope Emergency Plan Guide inspires that in you, too!

At the same time, if you’re aware at all, you know that some emergencies are simply beyond the power of the individual to cope with. Consider the recent fire in Maui. The earthquake in Morocco and the flood in Libya. Horrific loss of life. Widespread damage. Continuing pain and suffering.

In cases like these, organized disaster relief is essential to nearly any recovery.

In the United States, FEMA provides that relief on the part of the government. FEMA has representatives in every state, sending crews, supplies and administrative support, including cash, loans and grants, to victims, first responders and state, tribal and local governments.

Here’s the problem in the U.S. — FEMA is about to run out of money.

It’s just September, but we’ve already been dealt 23 separate billion-dollar weather disasters so far!

Moreover, we aren’t even halfway through the traditional hurricane season. The chart below gives you an idea of how September rates historically — and so, what we might expect.

I actually just checked on the current outlook. The image below, from YouTube’s Mr. Weatherman (one day ago) shows Hurricanes Nigel and Ophelia heading our way!

So it’s pretty clear that if congress doesn’t reach agreement on a spending bill to re-fill the FEMA Disaster Relief Fund, parts of the country affected by these approaching storms will NOT get the support they may have been expecting. In particular, FEMA may have to stop funding already planned and on-going repair and restoration projects, hazard mitigation initiatives, fire management strategies, etc. as well as pre-disaster resources.

If congress doesn’t reach agreement on a spending bill, Who you gonna call for disaster relief?

The cartoon at the top of this page is an exaggeration, of course. Saving and sustaining lives will always be at the top of the priority list for FEMA.

But we can’t take FEMA support for granted.

Unless Congress can get through its current chaos, the government is going to shut down. And that will mean, like the cartoon says, “Funding has run out.”

Preparedness has many facets. Keep an eye on this one.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

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Every year FEMA comes out with its National Household Survey on Preparedness. The 2020 survey – with estimated results — just appeared. (It seems odd to me that 2020 results would be released with 3 months still to go in the year, but . . .?)

While the survey results do show progress, they are not exactly ideal: only 51% of the US population considers itself prepared, up just 2 points since 2019. (You could say that this household survey confirms, again, why Joe and I continue our work at Emergency Plan Guide!!)

Let’s see how well you are doing.

Just for fun, here are a couple of little quizzes to see how you measure up! Of course, since you are reading this Advisory I’ll bet that your answers will put you into the very top tier of “preppers.”

If you are working with a group, please consider turning this Advisory into a newsletter article or an email exercise, and then compare your group results with what the 5,000 FEMA interviewees said!

Comparing national Basic Preparedness Actions.

FEMA defines six basic preparedness actions, and in 2020 about 68% of the people interviewed took at least 3 of them.

So here are the six basic actions. Which ones did YOU take in 2019?

Action	Yes, I did	No, I did not
Attend a local meeting or training
Talk with others on getting prepared
Make an emergency plan
Seek information on preparedness
Participate in an emergency drill
Gather supplies to last 3 or more days

And here’s what the survey says about your neighbors!

Action	National percentage who did
Attend a local meeting or training	29%
Talk with others on getting prepared	48%
Make an emergency plan	48%
Seek information on preparedness	65%
Participate in an emergency drill	56%
Gather supplies to last 3 or more days	81%

Comparing national household financial preparedness.

How well are people prepared for a financial emergency? The coronavirus pandemic has certainly shed some light on our savings habits . . ! But even in 2019, when we’d never heard the word “Novel,” the National Household Survey found that while 68% of adults have set aside some money for an emergency, only about half of them had more than $700. That number didn’t change in the 2020 survey.

Note: When I wrote the mini book on Emergency Cash it included a fictional story about the costs associated with a 200 mile, one-way evacuation from a hurricane-threatened coast to a relative’s house inland. Costs in the story quickly added up to close to $600, just to get there!

Clearly, emergencies take extra cash. How much do you have set aside? _____ Or, given today’s income challenges, how much is your goal for emergency savings? ______

What influences preparedness?

The study gathers information on four things that influence people’s decision to begin preparing. One of the four stands out as having the greatest influence. The other 3 seem to have a similar degree of influence.

Here are the four influencers. Which one do you think has twice the influence of the others?

1. Awareness of information – That is, I have read, seen or heard information in the past six months about how to get better prepared for a disaster.
2. Experience with disasters – I have personal or familial experience with the impact of a disaster.
3. Preparedness efficacy – I believe that preparing can help AND I am confident in my ability to prepare.
4. Risk perception – I recognize that at least one disaster type could impact where I live.

To answer the previous question, Item #4 has a 98% correlation with influencing people to start preparing. The other three only have a 47% correlation.

Measuring preparedness behavior change.

As we look at this last excerpt from the National Household Preparedness study, it offers some perspective for preparedness leaders.

FEMA uses a Stages of Change Model to measure attitude and behavior regarding preparedness. This chart measures changes between 2013 (grey line) to estimated 2020 (blue line). You can see how slow progress has been over these seven years! The only good news from 2020 is that more people “intend to prepare in the next six months.” (Stage 3)

What recommendations come out of this study for local groups and their leaders?

As I read these statistics, and fit them in with my own experience, I find at least 3 things that stand out to guide all our efforts.

1. We need to make neighbors understand what threats we face in our individual communities. And not just a name of a threat, like “hurricane” or “earthquake,” but details about alerts and warnings of danger, what damage could be caused, what to expect from authorities, and exactly how to best prepare for that threat. (This includes dispelling out-of-date recommendations like parking under an overpass during a tornado, or standing in a doorway during an earthquake!)
2. We need to emphasize that preparing for this threat is doable and will make a difference in how we get through or even how we survive. Simple step-by-step instructions will give people confidence they can do this. When you focus on the role of everyday household items for preparedness, like a flashlight or extra phone-charger, you are showing that preparing doesn’t need to be expensive.
3. Sponsoring local neighborhood meetings is the best way to share information about threats and preparing! (Haven’t we been saying and doing this all along?!)

When FEMA started their surveys way back in 2007, they studied a few factors that were not mentioned in the 2020 survey. I pulled out some info from earlier studies and am including it below. It certainly fits with my own experiences.

1. Information needs to be customized to the community – considering language, experiences with disasters, experience with law enforcement, etc.
2. Social networks within the community have a powerful influence on preparedness behavior. In particular, volunteering in preparedness/safety/disaster-related organizations spreads and strengthens knowledge and commitment.

Next steps for our groups.

Here in our neighborhood we are not yet back to regular, face-to-face meetings, so our ability to share detailed information is limited. Yes, we do publish various email announcements. And other groups are arranging for conference calls and zoom meetings to keep their members motivated.

However you manage your meetings, I hope you’ll consider what FEMA has discovered via its National Household Survey and use that information to encourage your attendees to learn more and do more. As I’ve sure you’ve found, once people start taking preparedness actions, it’s much easier for them to keep taking more. We can all strive to beat that 51% preparedness level in our neighborhoods!

Good luck with your own meetings, whether it’s just your family or includes neighbors or other social groups.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. Looking for inspiration? Our book of Emergency Preparedness Meeting Ideas has plenty of meeting suggestions that can be readily converted from face-to-face to online format.

P.P.S. If you’d like to see the full FEMA National Household Survey report, you can get summary results here. On that same page you’ll find links to 2 videos that present the entire study.

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There should be no controversy around emergency preparedness, right?

Wrong.

Even from my perspective as a “grass roots organizer,” I’m aware of several levels of controversy in the industry. For people who are serious about preparedness, it’s important to know about them. First of all, let’s look at . . .

Controversy at the individual family level

As you know, at Emergency Plan Guide we try to examine actions people can take that are mostly easily accomplished, not too expensive, and generally considered sensible. We count on most of our neighbors to be on the same wave length.

You can consider this approach as one side of the coin. If you spend any time online, you’ll be presented with the other side.

In contrast to the “neighborly” approach, this side is held by people who anticipate and make plans for significant societal upheavals, invest in self-defense including weapons and ammunition, and often don’t trust neighbors at all.

Where do you fit in this controversy?

Controversy at the First Responder level

We have always promoted the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training that is provided in many communities, at little or no cost. It gives citizens basic knowledge about how to protect themselves and their neighbors in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. Everyone who has taken CERT training has found it worthwhile and really appreciates the effort put into the training by the fire and police departments.

I hear from multiple sources, however (mostly online discussion groups, and some face-to-face conversations) that some trained First Responders wish the CERT people would just “get out of the way and leave us to do our job.” I have even heard recently of CERT budgets being raided by professional First Responders to meet their own departmental desires.

Controversy at the National level

Since the fiasco of Katrina under Mike Brown, FEMA has been headed up by people with actual emergency management background. But the agency hasn’t had a smooth ride over the past few years, with hundreds of declared emergencies. Brock Long, Administrator from June 2017 until February of this year, seemed to handle Hurricane Harvey pretty well, but FEMA’s response to Maria was widely criticized as slow and inadequate.

The latest development – two new Acting Administrators.

While FEMA leadership seems willing to deal with whatever hits the country next, we can’t count on it being effective, thanks to politics. President Trump delayed providing aid to victims of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico for a number of different political (and apparently some personal) reasons. When fires burst out in California in 2018, Trump incorrectly blamed the fires on “poor forest management” and threatened to withhold disaster relief. (He conveniently overlooked the fact that over half the forests in California are under federal land management.)

Because national leadership has suggested more than once that some Americans are worthy of response and relief, but OTHERS ARE NOT WORTHY, the entire federal emergency management program becomes suspect.

What is the answer?

From my perspective, all we can do is take on the responsibility for our own safety. We can all make an effort to become better prepared and better trained, build stronger relationships, and be ready to protect ourselves and our neighbors in an emergency.

That’s the posture Joe and I take, and that so many of our Emergency Plan Guide readers seem to take, too.

Depending on someone else may be ill-advised.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

Day 28 of Summer Vacation: A time for some shorter and lighter Advisories as a welcome change-of-pace!

Anyone who is active in the world of emergency preparedness recognizes these simple truths:

• Disasters, whether natural or man-made, are becoming more frequent and more serious. And more deadly.
• People with a personal survival plan have a better chance of surviving a disaster than those with no plan. Same for businesses and for communities with active neighborhood emergency response groups.
• Getting individual Americans to make a plan is an uphill battle!

How Can We Help More People and More Communities Be Better Prepared for Emergencies?

The government plays a role in preparedness.

FEMA was formed in 1979 with good intentions. When disaster awareness took front stage after 9-11-2001, FEMA’s efforts ratcheted up.

Actually, even before that, FEMA had seen the efforts of Los Angeles Fire Department to train civilians in earthquake preparedness. The LAFD program was adopted in 1993 as a national program and called Community Emergency Response Team (CERT).

CERT training is now available in all 50 states. Thousands of citizens have been trained and now serve as valuable interim backup to official First Responders. Training is at minimal cost and in some cases is free.

For the past decade or so, shifting from its traditional top-down approach, FEMA has looked at improving resilience at the community level. But here we are today, having gone through Katrina, Sandy, Harvey, Irma, Maria and Michael. We’ve experienced hundreds of mass shootings, thousands of acres of historical flooding, massive wild fires, and millions of data breaches — and the level of preparedness in American families hovers unchanged at around 50%!

Why don’t individual Americans prepare for emergencies?

After 30 years of working with our individual neighbors all across the country, we have found it boils down to this: the comforts of urban living have overtaken the urgency to develop survival skills.

And there’s a secondary reason, too. While people understand that working together will give them an advantage in an emergency, our increasingly diverse and ever-more-mobile society makes working together harder. 

So while people will always agree that they SHOULD be preparing, and that working together will give them an advantage, most lack the necessary leadership skills or they just aren’t willing to make the effort.

CERT Volunteers do their best to engage neighbors – but . . .

CERT training attracts a special breed of people, people who recognize risk and are eager to take action to reduce it for their families. When they have completed the CERT training they have a unique understanding of how their community and in particular how their First Responders work in a disaster. They also have skills to help save lives on the ground until those First Responders arrive.

But CERT training does not include a module on “community organizing.” Without the aptitude for sales or sales training — and lacking backing and financial support – individual CERT volunteers who want to build neighborhood groups around themselves inevitably run into a wall.

Businesses have preparedness advantages that individuals don’t.

Are you familiar with the statistics for business survival after a disaster?

FEMA reports that up to 40% of businesses never reopen after a disaster, and those that stay closed for more than 5 days are unlikely to last more than a year.

With a solid emergency preparedness or Business Contingency Plan, chances improve dramatically for a business to make it through or re-open more quickly.

But small businesses, like individual families, still lag behind in planning. They may not recognize the powerful advantages they already have for effective preparedness:

1. A business is already an existing group. Its members are typically in close physical contact. They know each other. They are used to working together as a team to meet a common objective.
2. Businesses have a built-in network of resources to call upon for help in planning for emergency. Those resources include other neighboring businesses, partners like suppliers, city governments, utilities, and professional advisers like accountants, attorneys, insurance agents, etc.  And CERT training is available to business usually at no cost.
3. Every business has a duty to protect lives, and everyone in the business has an incentive to protect their livelihood!  Even if the doors of the business are closed, the business has to make sure regulatory and legal commitments are met. A proper plan can assure this continuity, keep employees paid and deflect legal assaults.
4. The owner or employer sets the tone and can require and ensure that the business develop a preparedness culture.
5. Where the business’s plan includes well-thought-out emergency communications with employee families, it reduces employee anxiety and gives employees an incentive to stay or at least return to work during the critical minutes and hours immediately following an event.
6. And the prepared business actually adds a bonus for the whole community. Employees will take knowledge and training home and spread it within their local neighborhood.

Businesses start ahead of the game. All they have to do is get into it! 

Logically businesses might first turn to their existing team of professional advisers for help in putting together a plan. These are the accountants, attorneys, bankers and insurance brokers who currently advise them on their business issues. Each has valuable expertise.

But these professionals may not see themselves having a role in emergency preparedness. So without that guidance, how can businesses turn the corner on preparedness?

Businesses can use CERT to jumpstart preparedness training at their location.  

Once the business has been exposed to CERT, building a more comprehensive Business Contingency Plan will be a natural. And once employees have been exposed to CERT, they will automatically take new awareness and skills home with them right into their neighborhoods!

Spreading CERT from the business into the community at large isn’t a guaranteed or proven answer to more community resilience. But, given the uneven track record that many communities experience in trying to organize neighborhoods, this would certainly seem to be an approach worth testing.

Let us know what you think!

Here at EmergencyPlanGuide.org we’ve been committed for years to preparedness at the community level. To help businesses get started, we have published a simple guide to preparedness for small businesses. We are making it available to professional business advisers, too, along with reference materials and more resources from that particular service perspective.

Updated 2018, after Hurricane Florence. Note: this Advisory touches on a number of very significant issues that all employees and their employers need to be aware of. Everyone is urged to talk directly to their employer to get specific answers to the questions raised. Different states have different rules; different industries may have different requirements. Will your business survive a disaster? Know more about what to expect!

A second update, from 2020. Business closures as a result of the pandemic are not likely to reflect all the general guidelines described in this article. Still, it’s worth knowing questions to ask.

If you evacuate, and your work shuts down, will it survive?

When Hurricane Irma threatened Florida and Georgia just about a year ago, over 7 million people were under mandatory evacuation. This year, as Hurricane Florence approached the Carolinas, officials ordered over a million people to pack up and leave.  As I write this Advisory today (September 27, 2018) thousands more people in South Carolina are closing up and getting out to avoid historic flooding.

Most if not all of the businesses that employed all those evacuating people were closed; some are still closed.

Questions to consider:

Survival Question 1 – How long will it take to get the building back up and functioning?

If the business is damaged by winds, flood, contamination, fire, or even if it was not physically damaged, how long will it be before it can be re-opened?

• Getting electricity and other utilities back up is only the first step — and that may take days or even weeks as we have seen.
• Repairs to roads, bridges, etc. may be required before repair crews, equipment and supplies can reach individual business or residential communities.
• Construction supplies and crews will be in short supply, which means you will have to get in line — and their prices will go up.

Survival Question 2 – Once the building is up, what about the employees?

• Some employees may be unable to return to work because their homes have been damaged.
• Some employees may be unable to return to work because roads are still closed.
• Family issues (injury, child care, medical, etc.) may keep employees at home.
• Some employees will have run out of money and will not have been able to wait for the business to reopen.

Survival Question 3 – Even though the business is now ready to re-open, what about customers and suppliers?

• Your regular customers may not have returned from having been evacuated.
• Some may still be struggling with their own disasters and not want or be able to use your services.
• Your regular vendors may still be struggling, too — and you may not be able to get your usual deliveries of supplies.
• The entire economy may be depressed. (The tourist economy of Puerto Rico has not recovered after Hurricane Maria.)

Where will the money come from to make survival and rebuilding possible?

Timing is everything. If you can’t get the doors re-opened within 10 days, your business has little chance of surviving. In fact, about 40% of companies hit by natural disasters never do re-open.

And for small businesses, the chances of going under are even greater because not only is the workplace damaged or destroyed, but local customers have been hit by the storm, too.

OK, those are statistics. But stick with the scenario a bit longer.

Big storm hits – and thankfully you get through unharmed. Your family is shaken, but safe and back together. Unfortunately, your workplace was flooded and needs some major repairs. So now, the real emergency begins, because . . .

Income Question #1 – Will employees get paid during the evacuation and the re-building process?

If you are an employee, here’s what you need to know first about getting paid during and after a disaster.

1. Are you paid on an hourly basis and eligible for overtime? Or are you “exempt” from overtime?
2. How long is the business likely to be down?
3. Can you work from home?
4. Does your employer have an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) that will help?
5. Do you have a personal retirement plan – 401(k) – that you could borrow from?

As you can imagine, answers to these questions may vary company by company, and state by state. Here we are publishing general guidelines.

Income Question #2 – What does the Federal Government require of your employer?

According to the Fair Labor Standards Act (https://www.dol.gov/whd/flsa/), employers must pay covered non-exempt employees (hourly workers) for hours worked, and overtime to those workers who work more than 40 hours in one week. So, if you work, expect to get paid.

If you DON’T work because a disaster shuts down the business, don’t expect to get paid.

If you are a salaried employee, and the business is shut down for less than a week, you will probably get paid for that time. However, your employer may deduct those days from your leave bank. If the business is closed for a full workweek, your employer isn’t required to pay you.

If the workplace is completely destroyed from the disaster, you may be eligible for unemployment while you look for work or the company is being re-built.

If the company re-opens, but you can’t make it back to work because your own home has been damaged, or someone in your family has been injured, your absence is considered “a personal day” and it will likely be counted against your leave bank or deducted from your salary.

Your employer may have set up an Employee Assistance Plan (EAP) that in addition to referrals and counseling might provide short-term financial help – perhaps advancement on future wages. Note my use of the word “might” in that sentence . . .

Income Question #3 – Does your employer have the resources to hold things together?

If your employer has planned for emergencies, and made sure the company has the right insurances, funds may be available to keep the business and employees going while the business regains its footing. Applicable insurances may be property, flood, business interruption, added expense, etc.

For example, insurance coverage may allow for essential operations to be moved to a temporary location. There, office or other equipment can be rented so the company can provide regular or at least a skeleton service. Employees may have to be put up in a hotel. New temporary employees may have to be hired. Or, a few key employees may be called upon to work from home if they can get upgraded broadband, etc.

These additional expenses can add up quickly and many may have to be paid in cash, so this will require advance planning.

What’s the best answer?

Of course, you can’t predict a disaster, but the more you and your company prepare, the better the chances you’ll make it through the disaster and get back up and running before it’s too late.

So, even if emergency planning isn’t part of your official job description, you are advised to find out what planning your employer has done. It’s very possible that you could help improve whatever plan exists.

We have resources right here at Emergency Plan Guide.

• Use the search bar to find specific topics.
• Click on Business Planning in the Build Your Survival Skills section of the sidebar to page through some of the recent Advisories specifically for business owners and employees.
• Consider getting and sharing a copy of Emergency Preparedness for Small Business. Like this Advisory, it asks a lot of pertinent questions, and has many, many resources in its Appendix.

Even if the business ultimately survives a disaster, the people who worked there may experience their own, personal disaster. Smart planning may help everyone involved.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

P.S. In the midst of a disaster, employment issues can quickly develop. We are not legal or licensed insurance experts. If this Advisory has raised any questions about termination, discrimination, wage or hourly pay, insurance benefits, etc., please consult with a qualified adviser for answers that fit your individual situation.

New hurricane season started June 1.

Recent headlines announce the start of a new hurricane season, with between 10 and 16 named hurricanes to look forward to. There’s apparently a new threat, too – “superstorms” that fall outside the regular categories!

So, have you moved recently? Or are you planning some travel?

Or maybe right now you are sitting in an area that could be threatened by the winds, storm surge or flooding from a hurricane? (Hurricanes don’t just hit coastal areas. They can create flooding for hundreds of miles inland.)

At Emergency Plan Guide we’ve written about hurricanes before, of course. (Remember the “Hurricane Headscratcher” that we put out last year?) But even if you think you’re an “expert,” it can’t hurt to refresh your understanding of some smart things to do to prepare.

Here are two excellent references, new to this Advisory:

1. For families: . https://www.ready.gov/hurricanes  Note particularly the comments about signing up for local alerts and getting familiar with local evacuation zones and routes.
2. For business: http://www.agilityrecovery.com/assets/hurprep.pdf This 4-page checklist was written in 2013 so the statistics may not be up to date, but the recommendations are worth considering, particularly those that have to do with shutting your business down before the storm hits.

And to get back to Harvey, where there are still lessons to be learned . . .

Hurricane season reminds me of Harvey, so I went back to see what has happened in Texas since the storm hit there last year. (August-September, 2017)

The following list is about Texas, but it could apply to most every community affected or threatened by a natural disaster. (In fact, there are some striking similarities between what people in Houston experienced and what is going on right now in Hawaii.)

As you read, think about the threats your community could face and how it might fare . .

1- Insurance. Most homes in Harvey’s path didn’t have flood insurance. Since the storm, applications for flood insurance have increased, as you might expect. What you might not have expected is that the vast majority of new policies (quoted as 70% by one agent) are for homes outside the mapped flood hazard area. People are recognizing that planning around the concept of the “100 year flood” isn’t adequate.

2- Name. Harvey was so destructive (51 inches of rain in certain parts of Texas) that its name has been retired from the list of potential names for future storms.

3- Help from the Government. Texas has requested and received millions in aid for rebuilding. At the same time, the state requested “flexibility” in deciding how the funds should be used. This has alarmed advocates for housing and for disadvantaged communities because the list of projects submitted along with the requests was heavily weighted toward large-scale infrastructure.

4- Homeless. The problems haven’t ended for people displaced by the storm. Of course, some homeowners have started rebuilding. But other people whose homes were damaged have been notified they need to elevate the homes before they can move back in. Naturally, many can’t afford what can be considered major renovation. And the FEMA vouchers that were allowing homeowners to stay in hotels have now run out.

5- More homeless. People who were renting when the flood hit have suffered even more. If they had no insurance, they may have lost most of their personal property. Those who hadn’t found new apartments and had been staying in hotels found their vouchers ended even sooner than homeowners.

6- Still more homeless. I don’t even want to mention the FEMA trailers sitting empty months after the storm . . .

More results you may never have even considered.

7- Jails. Flooded courthouses slowed the wheels of justice, causing jails to become overcrowded. According to one jail insider, “The situation is so dire that the county lock-up may soon have to begin turning away arrestees.” (I was unable to find out if that actually happened.)

8- Animals. The water that inundated the area also caused displacement of animals. Alligators from the wild and also from parks floated free and appeared in flooded neighborhoods. Fire ants, driven from their underground homes, clustered into “floating islands” to protect their queens until waters receded and they were able to build new nests in new locations.

9- Disease. Medical professionals continue to monitor the impacts of the air pollution, contaminated water and mold caused by the flooding, mostly from the superfund sites in the region. Researchers predict long-term health and emotional health problems.

Yes, 2017’s hurricane season was “the most costly and disruptive on record” in the U.S. So maybe this year won’t be so bad?!

You can hope.

In the meanwhile, this one storm alone reminds us how Americans have become so dependent on modern conveniences – power, hospitals and medical services, transportation, communications – that when these get interrupted or destroyed, the results can be disastrous.

Time to take another look at how well YOU are prepared for an emergency.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. Many of our Advisories are meant to be shared. This is one. In particular, share the links to the two sets of checklists for families and for business. Just one good idea could save both money and anguish — not to mention lives.

The devastating floods being shown on TV are often accompanied by this voiceover:

“And most of these people have no flood insurance.”

When you see the piles of ruined possessions out on the curb, as in the photo, you get a better idea of what “no insurance” really means. And, I hope, you are prompted to take another look at whether your own insurance will help cover flood damage.

After all, it seems as though in the last 12 months we have seen multiple floods labeled “thousand year floods.”  So even if you have never been flooded before it’s possible you’ll experience one for the very first time. And it could be any time.

Last year we were threatened by unusual rain from El Niño, so I took a closer look at flood insurance. Here’s some of what I found out about it.

Of course, you should check with your own insurance agent to confirm how YOUR home fits into the world of insurance coverage. Questions to ask:

What does my Homeowner’s Insurance cover?

Your standard homeowner’s policy doesn’t cover flood damage at all. It may cover some water damage from rain coming through a hole in the roof punched in by a storm, but if rising waters fill the house, you are out of luck.

Do I have to live in a flood plain to get flood insurance?

Well first, do you know if you even live in a flood plain?

Find out by going to FEMA’s map service at https://msc.fema.gov/portal If you need more info about how to manage the map there, here’s a short Advisory on it.

UPDATE: FEMA is redoing the flood maps, changing the boundaries of the different zones. Whether you are in a high risk zone or not, you may need flood insurance.  According to a Washington Post article, only about one in 10 Carolina homes in the counties hit in 2017 by Hurricane Florence had flood insurance!

If you do live in a flood plain, obviously flood insurance will cost more because the chances are higher that there will be a claim. (If you have been required to obtain flood insurance as part of a mortgage, the map can be a good “second opinion.”)

The fact is, though, that something like 1 in 4 claims for flood damage is for a home not on a flood plain. So this shouldn’t be your deciding factor.

And, to answer the question, anyone can get flood insurance, flood plain or not.

Where do I get flood insurance?

Start by checking with your current home insurer. Some of them have flood insurance available, as a separate policy. Most will refer you directly to the National Flood Insurance Program, administered by FEMA. NFIP was set up in back in the 60s, and it has been updated regularly so be sure you check for the latest limits and costs.

How does NFIP work?

Like all insurance programs, the NFIP must be financially sound. Its policies are priced based on two things. First, the likelihood of a claim (“Are you in a flood plain?”). Then, the amount of coverage selected by the homeowner – whether for the building, the contents, or both.

Does the NFIP have maximum limits?

Yes. (That’s why I included that question here!)

While limits have increased over the years, and coverage has been refined, there are distinct features to the policy. You will need to watch for:

• Maximum for flood damage to the structure – currently $250,000
• Maximum for flood damage for possessions – currently $100,000

If you have a more expensive home, you can get “excess flood insurance.” You’ll get it from a private carrier, and it will function rather like “a flood policy with a $250,000 deductible!”

What is covered by NFIP?

According to the Insurance Information Institute, “Flood insurance covers direct physical losses by flood and losses resulting from flood-related erosion caused by heavy or prolonged rain, coastal storm surge, snow melt, blocked storm drainage systems, levee dam failure or other similar causes. To be considered a flood, waters must cover at least two acres or affect two properties.”

Note that last sentence. An overflowing storm drain just in front of your house might not count!

What isn’t covered?

Read the following exceptions carefully, and confirm whether they apply in your case.

• First, flood insurance doesn’t cover that build-out to your basement (although it may cover some of the air conditioning or heating systems). Nor will it cover stuff you may have stored down there. No basement coverage!
• Second, it may pay replacement cost for your home, but it will only pay “current value” on possessions. This means the family “heirlooms” may be worth almost nothing as far as insurance coverage is concerned.
• Third, this insurance doesn’t help cover living expenses during the time your home is being rebuilt.

And while I hesitate to say it, you may find that the way your insurer defines “not covered” is likely to be confusing and/or downright misleading. You need to become your own expert.

Should I get flood insurance?

I’m not going to recommend one way or another, but I would certainly consider it. The average price is somewhere around $600 a year for maximum coverage. (I looked into it for our house here in Southern California, built in what is essentially a desert landscape. Our quote was $371/year.)

What else should I know?

Here I WILL make some recommendations.

1. Be sure to maintain your house whether or not you get a flood policy. Some water damage coverage on your current homeowners policy may be denied if you haven’t installed or maintained gutters, kept up with roof repairs, etc.
2. No matter what kind of insurance you carry on your home and/or possessions, charge up your phone and do a deliberate walk through, video-taping the contents of every room. Having this record will be incredibly valuable in helping you remember what is missing or damaged in any kind of emergency. Put the footage on a flash drive and store it with a family member or at work, somewhere “off site.”
3. If you are thinking to wait until the “real” rainy season hits before you buy flood insurance, don’t wait any longer! Remember that there is a 30 day waiting period after you sign up before the coverage goes into effect.

Finally, as with all insurances, I recommend you get at least two quotes. Flood coverage, just like earthquake coverage, is something the average insurance professional may not be experienced with. You need to become your own expert – after all, it’s your house we’re talking about!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

P.S. I can hear some of our readers saying, “Heck, I know all this.” If that’s your case, how about forwarding the article to a family member or friend who might NOT know it all!  Thanks!

P.P.S. And if you haven’t already, subscribe to our Advisories below. Just let us know where to send them. You never know when one will come that has some new information perfect for you that week!

 

 

 

 

Helping people with disabilities.

This is my 5^th year of writing weekly Advisories, and my 15^th year of participating in my local neighborhood emergency response team. During that time I’ve attempted to address the challenges of helping people with disabilities during a disaster.

The first time the subject came up was after Katrina, when we heard the horrific stories of people left behind in their nursing home to drown. Then, after Hurricane Sandy, stories came out about people trapped in their high-rise apartments when the power – and thus the elevators – were out for days and days.

Most recently, I received an email from a reader asking if I had any advice for her newly-formed Emergency Team, particularly on how to plan to help neighbors suffering from dementia.

So for the past couple of months I’ve been reaching out again for resources.

Let me warn you – I have not found much!

But let me share what I have found, and invite you to comment or to incorporate some of this into your own local planning. I’m posing these as questions you can ask in your own community.

1 – Should we maintain a Registry of people with special needs?

Several online articles mentioned efforts to build lists of people who might need special help in an emergency. I found references to what looks to be a robust registry in Santa Clarita, California, and the Calgary Police (Canada) started a new such registry in 2015. However, other registries that I attempted to research have gone out of business!

I even posed a question online in a special LinkedIn group, and over two dozen people were kind enough to respond. The consensus: many people with disabilities do not want to be on any list – mostly because they don’t trust that their information will be kept private.

Check your local community for what’s available and confirm that it is secure.

2 – Does our city have special plans for First Responders when dealing with people with disabilities?

We have a great relationship with our City’s Office of Emergency Management, so we invited the head to speak to our group. One of the questions we posed was this one. His answer, “We do not have special plans because we don’t know exactly what will be needed.”

Since this answer wasn’t exactly satisfactory, I have dug deeper into training that is available for First Responders. In fact, there are resources available online, for free, that would be useful for First Responders and for ALL of us. We will be building them into our regular trainings starting in September.

Some simple and sensible guidelines:

• Don’t make assumptions about people’s abilities or disabilities in an emergency situation. Ask.
• Everybody will be disoriented in an emergency, so expect a range of emotional response.
• Treat people with respect. Somebody who can’t see isn’t necessarily deaf or stupid. Be patient.

Two resources I found most useful:

Tips for First Responders from the University of New Mexico. You can get a pdf that lists tips for dealing with 12 different situations: seniors, people with service animals, people with autism, etc.  The online link: http://cdd.unm.edu/dhpd/tips/tipsenglish.html

A set of training videos for First Responders comes from the Nisonger Center at Ohio State University. I found them thorough but long. This is the YouTube link:  https://youtu.be/VRa3oU09XIE?list=PLjdWYCi9CWHblC5668uTXiMoTHNEdyUaw

3 – What should people with disabilities do when it comes to emergency planning?

There is really only one good answer. If you have special needs, you are in the best position to plan for your own safety.

It’s up to you to build your own personal support network. Members of your network can be relatives, neighbors, friends and co-workers. You need more than just one person; you need people you can trust to check on you and people who know your capabilities and needs.

As part of my research I received many great referrals, but one document that appealed to me particularly comes from FEMA and the American Red Cross. Preparing for Disaster for People with Disabilities and other Special Needs is a brochure with a lot of basic information, but in my estimation, it’s the “Complete a Personal Assessment” section that is most valuable We will be using this assessment list with ALL our members..

Action Item: Get this Assessment; it starts on page 3 of the booklet: https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/documents/897

I have no doubt that we will be revisiting this topic many times. If you have a recommendation for EmergencyPlanGuide.org readers, please share it in the comments below.

Here’s to a better chance of survival for your entire community!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

I’ll be publishing excerpts from the materials mentioned in this Advisory. Don’t miss them. Sign up to get all our Advisories below.

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t have an answer yet.

But when you hear new zoning or new flood insurance requirements being debated, stop and find out what’s going on. Because YOU are likely paying the bill for repetitive disasters now, and you will be paying the bill when disaster strikes again!

Rebuilding in disaster-prone areas is a big issue.

Rick Moran, in American Thinker, said it well.

“Across the nation, tens of billions of tax dollars have been spent on subsidizing coastal reconstruction in the aftermath of storms, usually with little consideration of whether it actually makes sense to keep rebuilding in disaster-prone areas. If history is any guide, a large fraction of the federal money allotted to New York, New Jersey and other states recovering from Hurricane Sandy – an amount that could exceed $30 billion – will be used the same way.

Tax money will go toward putting things back as they were, essentially duplicating the vulnerability that existed before the hurricane.”

(To see the full article, click here.)

The problem is compounded by the current role of the Federal Government.

Many citizens want to, and do, look to government when disasters overcome a community. Even conservatives who fight for less government seem to support government aid when their communities are affected. But by helping local communities rebuild, federal programs have often created targets for the next natural disaster.

There are some efforts underway to break the build-devastate-rebuild cycle.

Some isolated and admittedly random examples from around the world:

• Alberta, Canada, is considering a plan to not cover damage costs in extreme floodways in future if people choose to rebuild there.

• In Nigeria, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has advised state governments to relocate citizens living in flood-prone areas.

• King County, Washington has bought a mobile home park that lies close to a flood-prone portion of the Cedar River and is planning to relocate current residents.

And as a follow up to Mr. Moran’s comments above, I read that:

• In New Jersey, $300 million in federal aid has been set aside for the Blue Acres program, which allows the state to buy up homes in repetitive flood-prone areas and convert the area to open space.

As far as I can tell, these examples of prevention are few and far between.

The American Citizen article has a quote from Robert S. Young, a North Carolina geologist, that seems to sum it up:

“We’re Americans, damn it.  Retreat is a dirty word.”

What are your thoughts about supporting rebuilding in disaster-prone areas using your tax dollars?

 

 

Children Deserve Survival Training

When there’s an emergency, whether storm, earthquake, flooding, or power outage – children go though it just like you do. How prepared are your children to survive? How about your grandchildren?

Little ones may not understand the potential danger of a storm or other emergency, and perhaps they don’t need to. But they CAN be prepared to take action when they recognize certain warning signs.

Emergency Preparedness at School

These days all schools have access to emergency preparedness training through FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Department of Education. (Just search for “Emergency Preparedness for Schools” on their websites.) Most schools have and practice emergency procedures.

In fact, our grandchildren (aged 10 and 13) seem to know more about how to respond in an earthquake than their parents do!

However, take these children out of the school setting, and they have no experience in taking care of themselves. These are children who have grown up in the suburbs. They’ve never spent time in the wilderness, never used tools, never hiked more than a couple of blocks! (Don’t get me wrong. They’re smart, and getting a great education. But it doesn’t include any survival skills!)

Action Step: Find out what Emergency Preparedness training your children’s teachers go through, and what drills they and the children participate in. It may reassure you!

What about survival training for younger children?

If your children are home with you all the time, then naturally you will be making decisions for them in the case of an emergency.

Still, you may not be with them all the time! What if the storm hits when your child is:

• At a day-care center
• On a play date at a friend’s house
• At a birthday party or an athletic event where other adults are in charge
• At the movies, at Sunday school, playing in the backyard – the list is endless!

You simply can’t be with your children 24 hours a day. So, what survival skills are you giving them?

A simple emergency preparedness tool for starters!

In 1993, FEMA and the American Red Cross put together a Coloring Book for Children. (Yes, it was created in 1993, so the illustrations are pretty dated . . . but I feel that overall, the coloring book has value.)

Here are five highlights from the coloring book, as I see them:

1. Work together.  The book is designed to be worked on by an adult and child team. Do you have older children who would find the coloring book silly? Let them be the “adult” in the conversation with the younger child.
2. Call 911. Use the coloring book as a tool to teach your child when and how to call 911.
3. Family emergency plan. If you haven’t done it yet, use the book as a motivation to identify your “outside meeting place” and your “out-of-area” emergency contact person.
4. Survival kits. Discuss – and build! – emergency supply kits for each family member.
5. Repeat.  The quiz on the last page is a good review.

Action Item: Here’s the link to the book. Click on it and print out the book. It’s 26 pages long, so you probably won’t be going through it all in one sitting.

Click to download Coloring Book

(Here’s the entire link again, in case you need it:  https://s3-us-gov-west-1.amazonaws.com/dam-production/uploads/20130726-1505-20490-1849/color.pdf)

I think this coloring book could be improved by being brought up to date. In fact, I’m ready to do a new version myself, because it seems as though young children still like to color. What suggestions do you have for improving it? Please let me know by using the comment box below.

Thank you!

Virginia – Your Emergency Response Guide Team