Paper Doll Organizes You To Prepare for an Emergency
September is National Preparedness Month.
The variety of emergencies to consider is mind-boggling. Last week, we observed the 22nd anniversary of 9/11 and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill experienced its second active shooter since late August.
Just this month, massive floods have overwhelmed Libya, Hong Kong, and Greece, and closer to hope, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and the festival-turned-city of Burning Man in Nevada were all overwhelmed by storms and floods.
A little over a week ago, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake caused devastation in Morocco. There always seem to be wildfires in the United States, while in the past year, smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted down through the U.S., causing breathing problems for allergy and asthma sufferers. Two weeks ago, there was a landslide into a grocery store parking lot in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, a few hours from me.
Fire and smoke, flood and blizzards, tornadoes and hurricanes — they can’t be ignored, and though this isn’t a forum to discuss global climate change, it is essential that we change and upgrade our emergency preparedness habits.
Organizing is a key principle in emergency preparedness. Without organization, there’s no way to communicate with loved ones, quickly locate what you need to protect yourself during the emergency and recover afterward, or get to a safe place and arrange for a secure location during the recovery period.
We can’t cover all aspects of emergency preparedness in one post. I recommend everyone visit the federal government’s Ready.gov to get started with emergency and disaster preparedness.
CREATE AN EMERGENCY KIT
Building an emergency kit involves is more than making sure that you have first aid supplies, although that’s important.
Start with the essentials
- Water and non-perishable food for several days — Depending on how widespread the emergency is, you may not have access to restaurants, cooking facilities, or electricity. It’s estimated that you should have one gallon of water, per person, per day and note that while water doesn’t expire, those dates on bottled water refer to the expiration of the plastic bottle, after which the chemicals in the plastic begin to break down. Periodically through the year, replace your emergency water bottles with new ones and use up the old ones before the expiration date. For food, aim for high-energy, high nutrition things that your family will actually eat. Be realistic, not aspirational!
- Can and bottle openers — If you have canned/bottled emergency food, please make sure you have a way to access it.
- Dining supplies — An emergency probably isn’t the best time to be picky. Stock paper plates and towels, and plastic utensils and cups.
- First aid kit — Stock your own if you’ve already got many of the supplies, or purchase a pre-made first aid kit from the pharmacy section of a Big Box store (Target has nice ones) or Amazon.
- Things that make stuff light up or go — That means extra batteries, chargers, and power banks. Keep matches in a waterproof container, or get a few long-handled lighters. Cell phones have flashlights, but you don’t want to wear down your phone’s battery if you don’t have access to electricity or your car in an emergency. Almost all modern cars have USB outlets for charging your phone, but if there’s a chance you’ll be in an older vehicle, there are chargers you can plug into a car’s cigarette lighter.
An NOAA Weather Radio — I recently tried to help a client with low vision set up her inexpensive emergency weather radio, and we were disappointed with the poor quality and the lack of intuitive design. CNN has a good article on The Best Emergency Radios in 2023. In addition to one that takes batteries, a hand-crank option not only relieves your fear of running out of power, but it gives elementary school-aged kids an activity to occupy them and make them feel useful.
- Plastic sheeting and duct tape, in case you have to shelter in place, and masks (to prevent inhalation of dust, contaminants, and germs). If it was good for nothing else, COVID got most of us in the habit of having masks on hand.
- Fire extinguisher — You should have these in your home and car anyway. At the very least, get the hand-held kind that look like bug spray cans. Consider emergency fire blankets, too!
- Sanitation and hygiene items — Disinfecting wipes, hand sanitizer, and garbage bags with plastic ties (the latter in case you lack access to bathroom facilities) keep you healthy while you wait things out. Also consider what feminine supplies and other personal hygiene items you might need.
- Whistles or other other noisemaking devices help you gain attention and seek assistance — If you don’t have a whistle, consider what else you or your kids might have handy, like kazoos or toy instruments.
- Maps — Remember paper maps? If you have to evacuate your community when cell towers are down and your usual routes are closed, a paper map enables you to navigate to safety.
- Comfort items — Depending on the type of emergency you face, you could be away from home for several days. Pack a complete change of clothes and well-fitting, sturdy shoes for each person, plus a sleeping bag or blanket for each individual.
If this is overwhelming, you may want to start with a ready-made 72-Hour grab & go kit.
If, however, you really want to built the ideal emergency Go bag, sites like Emergency Prep Gear have robust suggestions.
Another great resource is the American Red Cross Emergency Preparedness Checklist.
Remember items specific to you or your family members
- Got a baby? Think through everything the tiny human might need — Formula and bottles, diapers, wipes, etc. If you normally pump your milk, make sure you have a workable backup in case your pump is inoperable or unavailable.
- Prescription medications — I may be able to go a week without my Flintstones Complete vitamins, but not my diabetes medicine. Either keep a week’s worth of your meds in your emergency kit and switch them out each time you refill your prescription (so you’re never taking expired meds, and use the “emergency meds” right after you get a refill); otherwise, make sure your meds are grab-and-go ready at all times!
- Non-prescription items — Know your pain relievers and which work best for different kinds of pains or fevers, and pack OTC meds for all manner of tummy distress. Don’t forget contact lens solution!
- Pets are part of the family, so be sure you’ve got food, water, and meds for Fido or Fluffy
Don’t forget about papers, money, and things that work like money
If there’s a widespread electric outage in your community, credit and debit cards may not work, and if you’re used to using Apple Pay on your phone for most purchases, lack of data if cell towers are down may be a shock. Only you know how much cash on hand will make you feel safe, but consider getting the kind of under-clothing money belt you might use for international travel to keep your emergency funds hidden and safe.
If you can’t currently afford to keep any cash on hand for emergency situations, try putting away even one dollar at the end of each day in a cookie jar or piggy bank. Set an alarm on your phone to remind you daily to build up that at-home emergency fund.
During and after an emergency, you’re going to need to be able to access important family documents (or at least photographic evidence of them). Keep copies of insurance policies (at the very least, the page with your policy numbers, toll-free claim number, and declarations page).
You also want to make sure you have access to your family members’ ID and bank records. Secure them electronically in a cloud vault (for when there’s electricity); if you leave your home with paperwork (such as when you evacuate during a home fire or wildfire), be sure their secured in waterproof container.
Ready.gov had a great page for financial preparedness for emergencies. That link is a treasure trove of checklists, financial safety advice, instructions on how to built an emergency financial first aid kit, and a stack of PDFs and links to help you safeguard your financial situation during times of emergency and recovery.
The time to organize and prepare for an emergency is now, when there is no emergency. Brainstorm what you couldn’t do without. You’re not towing your house behind your car, but you do want to trigger any possible items you might not consider in the heat of the moment.
DEVELOP AN EMERGENCY PLAN FOR GETTING OUT OR STAYING PUT
Once you’ve got your emergency kit in place, it’s time to develop your emergency plan. Again, you don’t have to re-invent the wheel, as Ready.gov has a series of checklists for specific circumstance and needs:
- People with Disabilities
- People with Pets
- College Students
- Seniors
- Working with your kids to help develop your emergency plans
- Modifying your plan by location, because not all emergencies happen when you’re at home with your preparedness supplies. Have plans for when you’re at work and kids are school.
- Developing Emergency Plans for Your Business
Create a Written Plan
Once you’ve gone through everything I’ve referenced here and everything at Ready.gov, you’ll be able to start developing checklists for what you need, whom to call, where to go, and how to get there. It may seem excessive, but a written plan will help you organize your thoughts.
Maintain multiple copies of your plan in various locations: in your glove compartment, on the bulletin board or in an uncluttered desk drawer at your office, and within easy reach of major household exits. Talk through the plan every so often with your family.
Teenagers and older kids should know what’s relevant to them (like finding their siblings and arranging to meet at an agreed-upon location) and might keep a copy of the plan in their lockers. Your elementary school-aged kids should have emergency contact cards so if they get separated from family members they can make sure the grownups around them can contact the right people.
Practice Makes Perfect
Practice fire drills and escape routes in your home and office, and don’t just talk about it, but walk through the route. Identify a meeting point outside, away from the danger and be sure to designate someone to count heads.
Mention your escape routes to overnight guests in your home. If you have a card in your guest room with the Wi-Fi password, put info about the escape route there. (Everyone pays attention to Wi-Fi info; it’ll catch their eye!)
Beyond your home, develop an evacuation plan that considers all possible contingencies. If you need to drive yourself and your family out of town, know your community’s civil defense procedures to ensure your plan doesn’t contravene the official route. Don’t get in trouble with the authorities during an emergency!
Talk About Talking (During an Emergency)
Identify a long-distance communications point-person — Grandma in Boca? Your college kid in another state? Make sure they have a copy of your emergency plan and they they know the route in case your family members gets separated, can’t reach one another, but can reach the at-a-distance person.
Plan communications alternatives if family or co-workers are far-flung or traveling. Funnel updates to your long-distance point-person to share.
While the most important thing is to organize your safety, everyone will operate more effectively if they can reduce the stress related to not knowing what’s going on.
Five Minute Warning
What if you had only five minutes to rescue beloved possessions?
Your emergency plan will help you safely evacuate your family and make sure you have the absolute essentials. But what about items of sentimental value or things insurance can’t ever replace? What could you safely gather and take with you if you had only minutes to leave?
Never delay a safe departure, but consider these issues now in case you face a situation where you will have little opportunity to safeguard items of sentimental value. (Tips for parents: if your tiny human has a much loved stuffed animal, get a duplicate to keep with the emergency kit.)
Baby & Teddy Bear Image by StockSnap from Pixabay
In an evacuation, you can’t bring all of your family photos and scrapbooks. (But do make sure each of you has one recent photo of every family member in case your family becomes separated.)
Start now by identifying, digitizing, and uploading the photos that you’d miss long after the emergency is over. Seek help from a professional organizer who specializes in organizing photos, either through NAPO or The Photo Managers.
One more excellent resource for helping you develop your emergency kit and all of your plans is my colleague Judith Kolberg’s book Organize for Disaster: Prepare Your Family and Your Home for Any Natural Disaster or Unnatural Disaster.
HAVE THE RIGHT INSURANCE BEFORE YOU NEED IT!
- Do you have homeowner’s or renter’s insurance?
- Is your insurance policy up-to-date?
- Is your coverage equal to your recovery needs? Do you have replacement-value coverage? Do you know that replacement value is not the same as market value? Replacement value means insurance will provide funds equal to the pre-loss value, not the original value, of an item.
- Have you included an insurance rider for any recently-acquired big-ticket items (including jewelry, collectibles, and electronics)?
- Do you have a sewage backup rider? If your sump pump fails, things can get ugly…quickly!
- Do you have flood insurance? This can only be purchased from the National Flood Insurance Program and is not part of homeowner’s or renter’s insurance. See how flood insurance risk is evaluated below, and enter your address in the FEMA Flood Map Service Center to see a flood map for your area.
GET AND STAY INFORMED
Download the FEMA app to your phone; then make sure everyone in your family does, too. (Don’t forget the seniors!) Learn about the kinds of alerts the government may put out, including wireless emergency alerts (WEA) and the Emergency Alert System (EAS).
Next, know what kinds of disasters might happen in your area. It might be obvious for a newcomer to California to read up on earthquakes, but other situations might be a surprise. If your home is far from a river or ocean but experiences surprisingly heavy snowfalls, warm spring rains could bring flooding.
Also, know how your community prepares. As a native of Buffalo, NY, the first “incapacitating” snowfall I experienced in Tennessee ranked up there with a typical Tuesday back home, but I quickly learned that unlike Buffalo, Chattanooga was not prepared to deploy zillions of snow plows and salt trucks. My city is flanked by mountains, and while snow and ice melt by mid-morning at my house, getting up and down the mountains can be treacherous or impossible.
Have that NOAA Weather Radio radio I mentioned above. And while it’s easy to assume that you’ll just know if there’s a potential hazard in your area because “someone” will call you, people will be dealing with their own issues. Make a habit of monitoring the local radio or TV news when inclement weather is approaching.
Be Ready for the Nationwide Emergency Alert Test!
Finally, on Wednesday, October 4, 2023, at 2:20 p.m. Eastern Time, FEMA and the FCC are planning a nationwide Emergency Alert Test of WEA and EAS capabilities. The government wants to ensure that the systems are effective for warning about emergencies, particularly at the national level.
The WEA part of the test will go out over all cell phones.
If your phone is turned on, you’re going to get this alert, and it will probably be loud! If you’ve got baby in your house, be forewarned and maybe put any cell phones in the garage for the hour surrounding the test or otherwise muffle the phone under blankets. (You could turn your phone off, but then you won’t know if it works for you.)
Starting at 2:20 p.m. ET, cell towers will broadcast the test for approximately 30 minutes during which time all WEA-compatible phones within range of an active cell tower should get this test message:
“THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.”
(If your phone is set to Spanish, it will display: “ESTA ES UNA PRUEBA del Sistema Nacional de Alerta de Emergencia. No se necesita acción.”)
The EAS bit of the test will go out over radio and TV, just like the annoying Emergency Broadcast System tests we all recall. No big whoop.
Ironically, in case there’s widespread severe weather or some other major emergency, the test will be postponed from October 4th to October 11th.
Do you feel organized and prepared for an emergency? What do you wish you knew before you faced a weather emergency or other kind of disaster? Please share in the comments.
Paper Doll Post:
Great timely advice. We update the canned food in our emergency kit every two years. Usually, the soups expire by then. When disposing of unused water, I use it for my indoor and outdoor plants. It works pretty well.
Ooh, plants! Great idea. (I don’t have plants, so I wouldn’t have thought of this. I’ll spread the word!)
I don’t do a National Preparedness Post very often, but with the October 4th alert ready to start blaring in our ears in a few weeks, it seemed like a good time to talk about this.
This sure has been a crazy period of time with all of these natural disasters! My heart just goes out to people. I was reading that floods in Libya resulted from faulty dams… which they knew about. Tragic!
One thing we did in our family was establish a couple of “meetup locations.” One was on our street, if we ever had a fire in our house, so we would know where to look for each other. The other was a remote location where we would all aim to go if there were another terror attack and we couldn’t communicate. Sounds silly, but it felt like a good idea.
Not quite on topic, but I’ve also established a “keyword” with my daughters, that I will ask if I ever get a call from them asking for help (I’m hearing about these AI scams!).
Flood insurance – oy. It is something we need to look into. We’ve had water before, and I know that it isn’t covered by traditional homeowner’s insurance. Great reminder!!
Meetup locations, whether at home, at school, or at work, are really essential. And it’s not silly at all to plan for where to connect in case of a terror attack (or any other kind of disaster). Nobody every imagined an attack on the homeland after World War II end, but 9/11 proved that we can’t ever be too prepared. Whether it’s a house fire or a natural (or UNnatural) disaster, determining where everyone will meet so you know they’re safe is so important. Good for you!
Ooh, keywords/passwords are so much more common for families with little kids, so they know someone is safe. What a great idea to do it to fight scams. “Sure, honey, just tell me the password.” I know exactly what Paper Mommy and I should use!
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts!
This is one of those posts that upsets me because I realize how unprepared we are. Good to know there are ready-make to-go kits available!
Whether it’s computer security or emergency preparedness or just plain insurance talk, the initial concepts can induce panic. But the more we think about it, the more we can do in advance to protect ourselves and our loved ones. As with insurance, I’d rather have it and not need to use it than need to use it and not have it!
Thanks for reading!
Lions, tigers, bears, Oh, My! has morphed into floods, earthquakes, and fires. It seems like every day, there is another major natural disaster. It’s a scary time, and my heart goes out to all of those who have lost homes and loved ones.
I feel unprepared to a certain degree. Some of the suggestions you mentioned are in place. But I’m sure it’s time to revisit and make adjustments. It isn’t easy living with the unpredictability. However, I know you’re right that the more prepared we are, the better we’ll be able to handle when disaster strikes.
Stay safe, my friend!
You probably had a whole set of plans that worked when you were a young family with a tiny human; at each stage in our lives, we need to upgrade our plans for situations like these. I have no doubt you’ll rise to the occasion.
And yes, it’s heartbreaking to hear about the emergencies elsewhere, and wish we could do more to help.
Thanks for sharing, and stay safe, too!
I do have a grab and go emergency bag that I put together modeling it after Judith Kolberg’s Organize for Disaster book. Once a year I swap out food and water (which is not as much as I should have but all that will fit in that bag). I am behind in updating my spreadsheet of contacts and passwords. Thanks for the reminder.
Darn, I had a section recommending Judith’s book and accidentally took it out when I was editing. I’m going to put it back in now! Thanks for the prompting!
I hope this prompts you to update your spreadsheet. I’ll ask you about it the next time I see you on a Zoom call!
Thanks for reading!
This is fabulous information, Julie. I read Seana’s comment and think this is something everyone should also think about – a family code word so that you know it’s honestly that person needing help. I saw a report about someone demanding ransom money and used AI to import the daughter’s voice.
May family is scattered across the US. Your post is making me think that the son and family in Connecticut and the son in Nevada should create their plans and share them with me and each other.
Thank you for making me think about it.
I usually say, “the future is weird,” but in this kind of case, “the future is scary.”
I’m glad the idea of sharing/trading plans resonates with you. May you never, ever need any of this, but better safe than sorry!
This a great list. Thanks for all the details, as awful as the situation could be, it’s good to be prepared.
Yes! I always like to say, organization can’t prevent all catastrophes, but it can make them less catastrophic!
Thanks for reading!