More Ready Today!

Several times I’ve been asked why I enjoy helping people to get better prepared for emergency situations.

One key reason is that it’s so satisfying to see people take steps and make changes that could actually make their lives less difficult in the event of a significant (or even a minor) emergency situation.  I can imagine that if a big one were to hit us, those people would be more comfortable, more confident, more resilient, more self-sufficient, and hopefully less stressed.  That’s a good thing.

Here are but a few examples:

• Don volunteers for an organization that facilitates the hosting of foreign exchange students in Alaska.  After my presentation on developing family-specific communication plans, he realized that their organization would do well to add that element to their student briefings.  Imagine that you’re a teenager who has just arrived in an unfamiliar city, in a foreign country,  where you have a limited understand the language.  Getting around could be challenging enough.  But what if you were away from your host’s home during a big earthquake, with no power, no phones, no busses, and many roads and bridges out.  Having been briefed on what to do, where to go, and options for contacting your host family in such situations could make a huge difference!
• In a workshop, Pam and (another) Don realized the additional challenges that their son (who experiences autism) might have if the smoke detector s in their home started blaring.  They began developing an evacuation plan specifically for him.  I bet they’ve completed that plan, talked about it with their son, practiced it, and tweaked it as needed. Hopefully, they’ll never have to implement it in a real emergency.  But if they do, their attention to his special needs could make all the difference in the world.
• After several times hearing me preach one of the absolutely most important preparedness steps, Keith and Cindy began storing water to be used in the event of an emergency.  (For more info, see the Two Must-Do Actions page on this website.)  Now they’ll have that one key need readily available, no matter what.

Another reason I do this is that in every single workshop and in many follow-up support sessions, the participants give me preparedness ideas.  They are added to the examples I can provide in future workshops.  Plus, implementing those ideas myself can help me to be more ready, too.  Here are two examples:

• After a workshop, Leon and Nancy went shopping for bins to put their emergency supplies in .  They wanted bins that could be easily discerned from normal storage in their garage, something that would stand out.  This happened to be around Halloween time, and Voila! they were inspired by the tall stack of bright orange storage bins.  Perfect!  And during the never-ending Christmas shopping season, beautiful bright red storage bins are available.
• In a workshop Brian, a pharmacist, shared an idea for building up an emergency supply of prescription medications.  He reminded us that normally we can order our next refill a week or two before our current supply runs out.  If we do that a couple of times, before long we’ll have about an emergency supply to last a month.

Thanks to all my workshop participants.  You continue to inspire me and add to my preparedness training arsenal.  I’m so glad that you’ve taken the time to plan, to get more ready.  And I hope that you never have to implement your plans.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2012 at 6:59 pm and is filed under General Planning, Gratitude. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.