An emergency can come anytime without a warning. When one happens, it leaves parents frightened and can traumatize children a lot.
Emergencies might force families to leave their homes or even change their normal routines. It is, therefore, important for parents to ensure that their family members have enough guidance to mitigate any emergencies or disasters that might strike.
Making your family more prepared for an emergency starts with ensuring that every family member can stay safe before the emergency, during the emergency, and after the emergency.
This involves setting aside resources to handle anything that might affect the family. In addition, you need to make sure that each person in the family knows what to do, what they need to have, and where to stay.
You also need to understand the kind of emergencies you are getting ready for. For instance, common types of emergencies include natural disasters such as tornadoes, floods, and earthquakes, power outages, fire, and disease outbreaks.
Taking the right steps in getting ready is vital in ensuring that your family survives an emergency.
What Should You Do to Prepare for an Emergency?
Preparing for an emergency situation is more than simply creating a checklist of what to do - though that's a good idea too. Instead, you should look at the entire situation strategically and create a series of contingencies that can be practiced.
Ask yourself these questions to help prepare your family for disaster response:
- What are our risks?
- What are our strengths?
- What are our weaknesses?
- What unique skills do we have or can develop?
These are just a few questions that you should ask while preparing your disaster plan. The answers you come up with will ultimately help guide your family as you prepare your doomsday preparation guide.
Here are some other preparations that you will want to do to make sure you can get to the other side safely ...
Get Credible Sources of Emergency Alerts
The first thing to do to ensure that your family is prepared for an emergency is to make sure that you have credible sources of alerts in case of a pending emergency or disaster.
You can talk to your local government or emergency management agencies to know the modes of alerts that they use. The most common emergency alert methods include TV and radio, road signs, text messages, and phone calls.
Stock Up Survival Foods
Since you do not know how long you might be forced to stay indoors with your family during the emergency, you need to stock up a variety of shelf-stable food sources. This should be non-perishable food, water, medicine, and suppliers. To understand exactly what you need, you can look at these survival food companies. In addition, make sure that you have kept a kit of these foods at work and in your car as well. Do not just stock your house and assume that everything is okay.
Prepare Backups For Extended Loss Of Power
We're talking extra AA and D battery cells as well as power banks for your phone but really prepared people will also look at options like BLUETTI's line of power stations that can be charged by solar. While small batteries may get you through a blizzard or a hurricane with your flashlights working ... a power station will help you recover by making sure your fridge, lights, computers, even electric tools can stay powered.
Plan To Be Prepared!
Identify the types of emergencies that might happen. For instance, you can know if there is a risk of fires or floods where you live. Not all emergencies need the same level of preparation but your family should be aware of any and all risks in your immediate area from armed attackers to natural disasters or even violent weather where preparation is limited to simply bringing lawn chairs and loose items inside for the day.
Prepare for Shelter in Place and Evacuation
Unfortunately, other emergencies need far more preparation and attention. Emergencies such as winter storms and tornadoes require a family to stay where they are until they are told to leave by the designated authority.
This is also referred to as a shelter in place. You should ensure that there is a safe room in your house where you can stay with your family while watching television, listening to the radio, or accessing the internet to ensure that you do not miss any instructions.
Other emergencies such as floods and fires might require the entire family to leave their home and get shelter somewhere else. In such situations, you need to make sure that you have an emergency kit in your car and your gas tank is full.
You also need to keep tabs on instructions given by authorities in case you are told where to get shelter from.
Modes of Communication
When an emergency strikes, different family members might be at different locations. To ensure that the entire family is prepared for an emergency, they should all have access to emergency alerts and the contact information of every family member.
In addition, you should all have an agreed meeting point in and outside your neighborhood. This is important due to the type of emergency. You can meet in your neighborhood in case of something like a fire and outside when you are forced to evacuate.
When communicating during an emergency, ensure that you have one or two people that each of the family members can send a text message to informing them of their whereabouts and to let them know that they are okay. You do not need to be calling each other during an emergency.
Additionally, you should consider having extra phones available that family members can use in an emergency. For instance, while your younger children might not normally be able to have their own phone - in an emergency situation, this can be a lifeline. Not only will they be able to communicate with you if they get lost but you can also track their location using GPS.
Of course, for those doomsday scenarios where phone and internet service goes out, there are other devices that we like to have on hand for communication without cell service. One of our favorites is goTenna but you can also install apps like Briar that can be installed on your Android phone to offer similar mesh network chat ability over wifi instead of the internet or phone network.
Don't Forget About Entertainment
We spend a lot of time and energy worrying about food, water, and communication but entertainment is essential too! Emotional care will be essential to your family's survival in a disaster. This is true for a short instance like a hurricane but also for longer periods of isolation too.
Make sure to pack some favorite books and board games but also consider having a portable hard drive with music, movies, and tv episodes backed up as well so you can watch them without having to connect to the internet.
Check Your Plans And Gear Regularly To Ensure Preparedness
It isn't good enough to simply write a plan and stock a shelter. Instead, you will need to create a regular schedule to check on your items and make sure things are secure and haven't spoiled or expired. For instance, while emergency rations will last for virtually ever - bottled water should be replaced every two years if stored in standard plastic containers.
This is especially true for backup medicines that can go bad after several months (always ask your pharmacist for advice here).
Additionally, your children are growing and may need different levels of preparation depending on their age, so updating your emergency preparation plans on a yearly basis is an essential part of keeping your family safe in an emergency.
In conclusion, it is not easy to know when an emergency will strike. This means that you need to be ready at all times and understand all survival tips to help you through the emergency. In addition, you need to regularly practice the measures discussed above just to make sure that each family member knows what is expected of them.
