Emergency Preparedness
Welcome to the Well-Equipped Family's Emergency Preparedness page! When natural or man-made disaster strikes it's too late to gather the supplies and skills necessary to ensure your family's health and well-being. It takes vision to look to the needs of our families BEFORE disaster comes. It takes time and effort to ensure you have the key factors in place but it is time VERY WELL spent.
Food storage: How long can your family eat on what you have in the house at the moment? What kind and how much food do you need to store? and how do you rotate it so nothing expires and is wasted? Some other important items would be LED flashlights, batteries, necessary medications, fuel, etc.
You will need to make your own customized emergency preparedness kit for your area and specific family size and needs. We will help you prioritize, calculate reasonable quantities and get the right items because we don't need to waste time, money or effort on items that are not needed or inefficient.
- Learn evacuation routes and plans for your workplace and your children’s school or day care
- Discuss possible dangers with family members and how to respond to each
- Identify safe areas in the home
- Show family members how to turn off water, gas and electricity at main switches when necessary
- Post emergency numbers near telephone and in cell phone address books (should include at least one local friend or family member and one out of state)
- Identify two emergency meeting locations
- One near the home
- One outside the neighborhood
- Attend first aid and CPR classes
- Keep family records in a water and fire-proof container
- Full tank of gas
- Get to know the neighbors
- Who has medical experience?
- Do you know where/how to shut off each other’s utilities?
- Exchange keys (if you trust them)
- Exchange important phone numbers
- Each family member has family photo
- Sanitation supplies (terrible thing to run out of toilet paper when the stores are not open)
- Strap hot water heater to the wall
- Move bleach and ammonia to separate locations
- Teach family members to stay low in a fire
- Collapsible ladder on each upper floor room
- Install smoke detectors (and change batteries)
- Teach family members to feel the bottom of the door in a fire. Never to open doors that are hot.
- Secure the home:
- Keep electrical and gas connections and appliances in good repair
- Secure shelving and overhead lighting/fans
- Keep large/heavy items low on shelves and cabinets
- Hang glass pictures and mirrors away from beds
- Store weed killers, pesticides and flammable products away from heat sources
- Keep oily polishing rags or waste in covered metal cans
- Clean and repair chimneys, flue pipes, vent connectors and gas vents
