FAMILY PREPAREDNESS
Disasters disrupt hundreds of thousands of lives every year they can strike quickly and without warning. If a disaster occurs in your community, local government and disaster-relief organizations try to help you. But you need to be ready as well. Responders and relief workers may not be able to reach you and your family immediately. Families can work together to cope with disasters by preparing in advance. Being prepared and understanding what to do can reduce fear, anxiety and losses that accompany disasters. Knowing what to do is your best protection and your responsibility. Help your family to know that if they are prepared, they need not fear emergency situations.
Prepare Your Family
Preparing for disaster helps everyone in the family accept the fact that disasters do happen, and that they can do something about it. Families should work together to identify and collect the resources needed to meet basic needs during and after disaster. When people feel prepared, they cope better.
- Call your local emergency management office or local American Red Cross chapter and ask about the specific hazards in your community and about your risk to those hazards. Also learn about community response plans, evacuation plans and routes, community warning systems, and nearby buildings that are designated as disaster shelters.
- Learn about the emergency plans and procedures that exist in places you and your family spend time. Priority locations include places of employment, schools, and childcare centers.
Family Emergency/Disaster Kit Recommendation
 It is important that you and your family have certain basic emergency and first aid supplies available at your home (and office) so that you can respond to home emergency and disaster situations when they arise. Organize your emergency kit(s) and be sure each family member knows where these supplies are kept and has a basic knowledge of how to use them. The supplies in your kit may vary with your family's individual needs and activities. Please review the following emergency/disaster kit recommendations and create your own kit:
Kit recommendations from the American Red Cross
Kit recommendations from FEMA
Kit recommendations from Janes
Kit recommendations from the National Fire Protection Association
Kit recommendations from Ready.gov
Kit recommendations from Ready.gov PDF
Remember to include important items to preserve your family's routines, such as favorite toys, games, or books so that your family will be able to have some degree of normalcy if a time of emergency arises.
Family Emergency/Disaster Plan Recommendations
In addition to emergency supplies your family should also have a plan for how to respond to an emergency. Your family plan should be flexible, responsiblites should be divided and often duplictated among family members so that regardless of who is at home the family will still be able to respond properly. You should inlcude in your plan specifics of how family members will contact one another if the family is scattered during an emergency, keep in mind normal lines of communication may not be functioning depending on the scope of the event.
- Discuss with your family the hazards that could impact your local area, the potential for community evacuation or sheltering, and your community’s warning systems and what to do if they are used.
- Determine where to meet in the event of an emergency. Designate one location right outside your home in case of a sudden emergency, like a fire, and another location outside
your neighborhood in case you can't return home.
- Ask an out-of-town friend or relative to be your emergency contact. Following a disaster, family members should call this person and tell them where they are.
- Make a communication plan where all family members know how to contact each other. A form for recording this information can be found at www.ready.gov - or at www.redcross.org/contactcard.
- Include provisions for your pets in your family disaster plan.
- Practice the plan.
Planning recommendations from the American Red Cross
Planning recommendations from FEMA
Recovery recommendations from FEMA
Animal Emergency/Disaster Recommendations
Be sure to include your companion animals in your emergency and disaster plans. You are your compainion animal most import lifeline, be prepared! Pet recommendationf from FEMA
Pet recommendations from the Humane Society of the United States
Pet recommendations from the National Fire Protection Association
Pet reommendations from Ready.gov
Remember to include important items to preserver your companion animals routine, such as favorite toys, bedding, or treats. Normalcy is as important to your companion animals as it is to the rest of your family members.
Disabilities and Vulnerable Populations Recommendations
Prepare Now
A San Francisco based organization devoted to supporting the needs of vulnerable people in disaster preparedness and response. A great resource for any one when making disaster preparations.
Ready Illinois
Download a free copy of
Emergency Preparedness Tips for Those with Functional Needs
Emergency Preparedness for Children with Special Health Care Needs
American Academy of Pediatrics, 2003
This web site provides emergency medical forms developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) for summarizing critical information about children with special health-care needs. These are intended for completion by a pediatrician.
National Center on Emergency Preparedness for People with Disabilities
The center provides resources to assist local emergency planning organizations in serving individuals with specialized communications, transportation, and medical support needs. The center provides print and multimedia materials and customized training and technical assistance to organizations that are evaluating and/or revising their emergency planning procedures.
First Aid & CPR
Knoweldge of first aid procedures may be invaluable for your family durning any type of emegency sistuation. First aid and/or CPR classes are provided at many locations within most communites. The following are organizations and companies in Illinois which offer First Aid and/or CPR training:
American Red Cross - List of Chapters contact your local chapter
American CPR Training
CPR Pro - directory of Illinois specific training centers
Take Your Heart For A Walk
Help get America walking and join the American Heart Association as they Start! with a Million Miles. They've set a national challenge to collectively walk a million miles at American Heart Association Start!
Walk more. Eat well. Live longer. Did you know that you will gain two hours of life expectancy for every one hour of regular exercise? For more information about the American Heart Association Start! program please visit the following link:
Start! Heart Walk
Links of Interest
In Case of Emergency—ICE
East Anglian Ambulance NHS Trust, April 20, 2005
The personal safety campaign known as ICE originated in the United Kingdom and urges the public to store a special emergency contact number in their cell phones “in case of emergency.” This simple action may assist first responders in quickly locating a responsible person to make decisions for anyone rendered unable to so during an emergency.
Internal Revenue Service Tax Relief in Disaster Situations
This IRS web site explains special tax law provisions that may help taxpayers recover financially from the impact of a disaster, especially when the President declares their location to be a major disaster area.
Looks Too Good To Be True.Com
A federal law enforcement and industry task force developed this site to inform private citizens of the nexus between fraud and terrorism financing and to help them avoid being victimized by international criminal schemes that target them for Internet scams. The site is funded by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Other key partners include the National White Collar Crime Center, Monster.com, Target, and members of the Merchants Risk Council.
National Terror Alert Resource and Information Center
Geared to the needs of the general public, this web site provides free online homeland security resource guides with step-by-step instructions that demonstrate how to safeguard families before, after, and during a terrorist attack.
Ready.gov
Ready.gov is the Department of Homeland Security's public web site on emergency preparedness. It explains how to assemble emergency supplies and create a family communication plan and recommends actions for a variety of terrorist-related emergency situations.
Through a Child's Eyes: September 11, 2001
Produced by Home Box Office (HBO) in consultation with the New York University Child Study Center, American Academy of Pediatrics, and Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media, this film weaves live-action footage of young people with musical interludes. Kids of diverse backgrounds share their thoughts on the September 11 tragedy and provide surprising words of wisdom and insight. The special also points viewers to web-based resources and features a toll-free number that offers information for adults who want their children to move forward in healthy ways during troubled times. Consult the HBO Schedule for air dates.
Additional Resources
50 Emergency Uses for a Camera (Camera Phone)
Information from the National Organization on Disability
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