Near-Home Reunion Location

May 20, 2012

Many families have home evacuation plans, including a means for each capable family member to escape from every room, as well as a plan to help any who can’t get out on their own.  Practicing such evacuations will make it second nature should the need arise and will help you to identify difficult-to-dump rooms and other challenges.  I’ll write more on all that in a future post.  For now I want you to think about what to do once you all dive out of the windows.

I heard a story about a family in Texas.  They taught their three young children the importance of getting out of the house quickly and under what situations they should evacuate.  They had drills where each family member, including the kids, practiced escaping from their bedrooms and from the family room.  Very impressive.

Then one night, the worst happened.  The parents were awakened by the shrieking smoke detector!  Smoke was billowing through the hallway!  They jumped out of their bedroom window, just as they had practiced, and ran to the front yard.  There they joined two of their three children.  It took the dad and a neighbor to hold back the mom, who wanted to go back in to rescue her youngest son, 6-year-old Johnny.  Fifteen long minutes later, a fireman spotted Johnny, who had been worrying about the rest of the family, alone in the backyard.  He too had climbed out of the window, just like they had practiced.  But no one had talked about what to do next.

Pick a reunion location near your house, a place for everyone to gather if you have to quickly evacuate.  The reunion location can be at your mailbox, under the big tree across the street, or any spot that everyone in the family can remember and easily get to.  Then, when you talk about your evacuation plan and when you practice it, take the next step, tell everyone to go to the reunion location.  Practice meeting there.

Had that Texas family included a reunion location in their family evacuation plan, they would not have had to suffer through that incredibly long 15-minute wait before knowing that all their family members were safe.

 

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Posted by MoreReadyToday

Seek a Helpful Stranger

March 29, 2012

The hotel elevator opened on the 11th floor and a 4-year-old boy walked out.  Surprisingly, no one else was on the elevator.  A family of four boarded the elevator like nothing unusual had just happened. 

A man on his way to the gym and I stopped, watched the little guy go confidently down the hall, looked at each other, and chose not to board the elevator. “I’ll keep an eye on him,” I said.  “I’ll call the front desk,” said the gym guy. 

As I chatted with little Ryan in the hallway for a few minutes, a couple of security guards reached the 11th floor, followed quickly by Ryan’s panic-stricken dad.  It all ended well.

True story.  That really happened to me in LA two weeks ago. 

The quick resolution to Ryan’s challenge was aided by a couple of helpful strangers.  Teach your child that certain strangers can be helpful.  They can be in the form of police officers, security officers, moms with children, and store clerks.  And sometimes they take other forms, like the gym guy and me.

Teach your children what to do if they become separated from  you in a crowd or a store or in any public place. Teach them to look for a helpful stranger.  They’ll be there.

2 Comments | Kids/Youth, Safety/Security | Permalink
Posted by MoreReadyToday