Emergency Preparedness Plans

We have tried to gather emergency preparedness plans from different families and groups to help us all be better prepared.
If you have an Emergency Preparedness Plan in your group, and would be willing to share it with us,
please send it to us and we will post here on this web page.

The more people we can help get prepared now, the less we will have to help when an emergency comes!


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There is an increased awareness of the need to prepare,
but awareness does not always translate into action.

These ideas below are intended to help us translate intention into action!



In the boxing world they say "THE WAY WE TRAIN IS THE WAY WE FIGHT". It is obvious that we will never be fully prepared no matter how much we work at it. However, if we are not actively in the process of preparing, when an emergency comes, it will be too late to do anything more to get ready.

Here are some of the obstacles and steps to effective emergency preparedness:

(1) The greatest obstacle in Emergency Preparedness is PROCRASTINATION!
(2) We procrastinate because the job of being prepared for an emergency seems overwhelming.
(3) To not be overwhelmed at such a huge task, we need to just take it one step at a time.
(4) The first step in emergency preparedness is to believe we can accomplish the task over time.
(5) The second step in getting prepared is to just start somewhere.
(6) The third step in emergency preparedness is to set a goal to be prepared.
(7) To accomplish a goal we have to have a plan.
(8) Once we have a plan then we have to take action to put our plan into place one step at a time.




FAMILY PLANS

The most important plan you can follow is your own PERSONAL FAMILY PREPAREDNESS PLAN.

The key to being able to follow that plan IS TO HAVE ONE TO FOLLOW IN THE FIRST PLACE!

We don't have to do it all at one time. But we have to start somewhere and do a little every day, or week or month.

A journey of a 1000 miles begins with one step. Emergency preparedness likewise must start with a single step of doing something. SOMETHING! Just one thing to get started!

Here are some suggestions that might help you get started with your PERSONAL FAMILY PREPAREDNESS PLAN:

(1) Use some of these suggested check lists
FEMA READY Family Emergency Plan
PEP-C Family Preparedness Lists
FEMA FAMILY PLAN CHECK LISTS
Family Readiness Plan

(2) Buy one item at a time
Most people cannot afford to just purchase enough food, water, fuel and medical supplies to last even for one week. That is where having a plan comes in. We would like to suggest that as a part of you plan you set the goal to be prepared in steps. First plan to have enough food and water for on hand for one day. Then gradually build your supply up to having enough for one week. It is ideal to have at least enough food, water, and medical supplies that you could survive for one month without going to the store. That can be accomplished by everyone no matter what your economical situation is. HOW? You can do that by simply buying one extra can of food each time you go to the store. If you are storing large buckets of grain and rice you don't really have a food storage plan. You just have a bunch of food stored that you are not used to eating and which may not even be good after several years. It is very important to eat what you store and store what you eat. If you will set the goal to just buy one or two extra things each time you go to the store, before you know it you will have a pretty good supply of food and medicine. When you buy a can of corn, buy two and put one on the shelf in your pantry. When you buy a box of band aids, buy two and put one away. This of course needs to be a part of your family plan. Knowing what you want to store. Knowing how much to store as a part of your goal. BUT THIS IS A PLACE TO START. If you will just buy one or two extra things each time you go to the store, within a few months you will be surprised how much you will have stored up.

(3) Rotate what you store
A lot of families have stored five gallon buckets of wheat, rice, beans, and the like. However it has been our experience that it is very hard for our body to adjust to eating things that we are not used to. If you are going to store beans then you need to learn to eat beans. If you are going to store wheat, then you need to lean to eat whole wheat as a breakfast cereal once in a while or whole wheat bread. If you store it, eat it. If you store it, rotate what you store. Most things will not keep for more than a couple of years. If you are storing powdered milk, you need to have a plan of how you will start using it. Rotate it. Many people have created shelves that let them rotate things by putting the new items in the back and taking the old items from the front to use first. It is really important to DATE WHAT YOU ARE STORING. When you purchase a few extra things, take a sharpie or magic marker and write the date on the top. We like to also write how much we paid. That has been an eye opener for us to realize how much prices go up in a very short time. When we bought honey a few years ago it was $8 a quart. Not it is $13. Why didn't we buy more then? Well because we did not realize it was going to double in price in 2 years.

(3) Consider this list possible emergencies that could effect your family : (Can you help us add to this list?)
Look at this list and see if any of them cold effect you or your family either at home, work or while on vacation. Then add it to your family plan. Create possible scenarios for each one and make it a part of your plan as to how you would deal with that emergency. Remember, all disasters do not necessarily effect the whole community.

House Fire
Job Loss
Serious personal injury
Local Flooding
Serious Wind Storm
Extended Power Outage
Tornado
Hurricane
Tsunami
Minor Earthquake
Major Earthquake
Local epidemic (E. coli outbreak for example)
Major Pandemic
Chemical spill near your home
Nuclear Dirty Bomb in your region
Terrorist Attach in a local area like a Mall or sports event

COMMUNITY PLANS

Here are some web pages you can go to that will let you see community emergency preparedness plans:


FEDERAL PLANS

FEMA's "Ready" program

STATE EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS PLANS

Washington State Emergency Management Division Home Page:
http://mil.wa.gov/emergency-management-division

Cetizen Emergency Response Teams (CERT):
http://www.fema.gov/community-emergency-response-teams

Map Your Neighborhood:
http://mil.wa.gov/emergency-management-division/preparedness/map-your-neighborhood

Compelling photos. Streaming videos. Illustrated step-by-step instructions on how to prepare in a year by spending one hour a month doing some disaster preparedness activity.
ww.emd.wa.gov/preparedness/prep_prepare_year.shtml

For local offices of Washington State Emergency Management:
www.emd.wa.gov/preparedness/prep_neighborhoods.shtml

Washington State Emergency Preparedness Web Page:
www.emd.wa.gov

Michigan State Patrol Family Preparedness Guide
www.michigan.gov/msp/0,4643,7-123-1593_3507-25233--,00.html

LOCAL COMMUNITY EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS PLANS

Gig Harbor, Washington - Peninsula Emergency Preparedness Committee (PEPC)
www.pep-c.org

COMMERCIAL EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS WEB PAGES

Emergency Essentials

(if you would like to be listed here, please send me the link)





If you want to share your family or group's emergency preparedness plan with others, please email it to us at







Last Updated 10 Feb 2012







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