Emergency Management at Home

Build a disaster recovery plan for your family to keep you and your home safe in emergency situations and times of trouble. It will help you ride a crisis out safely no matter what that storm may be.

Severe weather phenomenon can be a frightening disruption in our lives. Heavy storms, tornadoes, earthquakes, and hurricanes can cause so much damage and devastation that your local conveniences can be brought to a stand still. Without power, water, and public services facing the downtime can be very uncomfortable.

Issues like financial and medical crisis can be just as threatening. We need a disaster recovery plan for any foreseeable calamity that we can predict and those we cannot.

Water can seep into our homes destroying precious memories, expensive equipment, and leave you wishing you had made plans to protect your family better.

High winds can propel even small objects as deadly missiles causing structural damage to your home's exterior.

A negative impact on your family's income can be just as devastating.

Planning ahead with simple changes in your decorating and storage plans can result in a successful recovery in these hazardous times. Loss to your family's treasures and being stuck with no sustenance can be a nightmare. Not to mention the financial devastation that can go with these crisis.

Here are a few things you might want to think about to survival a crisis successfully, whatever it may be.

Image: Allposters

Disaster planning properly requires a bit of study. These helpful emergency manuals help with planning to safeguard your home and family in crisis. Included with in them are guidelines for survival in hurricane, tornado, and earthquake zones. The more information you have about your home survival plan the better you can manage through what ever crisis comes your way.

Teaching family preparedness

The fire drill is the most common activity for teaching your family emergency preparedness plans. Every member of your family needs to know what to do when disaster strikes! Using this blueprint of a home's layout as an example to model your emergency drill is a great way to get your family accustom to the preparedness topic.

Discuss where you exit the home. Plan a meeting once every 90 days or so to get your family in emergency mode and help them be focused on safety.

Even the little ones in your family unit need to know where the exits are in your home and what their tasks are in the unlikely event your home needs to be evacuated!

Create your own home plan using this image as a guideline.

If at anytime your family cannot be kept together and God forbid you are separated, pre-arrange a relative or family friend in another city to call in the event you cannot stay as a group. They should have a file w/ the following information for your immediate family members:

1. Individual Family Member's full name, birth date, and social security number
2. Medical Issues: allergies to foods or medications.
3. Medication Needed? Heart conditions, diabetic, blood pressure, ect.
4. Insurance Information: Home Owner's, Vehicle, Medical Insurance Info.

For Life's Storms

Perhaps that storm isn't something from Mother Nature? Preparedness comes in many forms and can assist you in any crisis. Disaster isn't always a natural phenomenon.

A crisis in the form of unemployment, a medical condition that leaves the breadwinner laid up in illness, or any unexpected event that affects the paycheck.

Maybe you have a debt item that is putting an extreme burden on your resources and you want focus on getting it out if the way.

A serious offset of regular income can be as disturbing as any natural phenomenon. This is where and why stored food, water (H2o), and supplies are so important.

Prepare your home for floods

The general rule for areas that are prone to flooding is placing anything of value above three feet in your home. The likely hood of water damage in these areas are certain. They might not happen but every few years but a situation where there is extra rain or a severe storm will bring on the flooding. Prepare your home ahead of time and save your family the heartache of losing valuable items and sentimental treasures.

Seal your important documents and family photos in water-proof bags or containers or better yet keep copies of them in a safe-deposit box at your bank.

Make a survey of your home. Is there anything below 3 feet that needs to be protected? Anything in that zone that would be ruined if it got wet? Your wedding album, family pictures, that bible that has been passed down from generation to generation? Are these items above the flood level in your home?

With inclement weather situations or earthquakes having prepared your precious treasures for calamity means an easier recovery. Packing up goods and valuable items in handy containers such as a large tote with a secure top or a 5 gallon bucket with a lid can leave you with a little security knowing you have exactly what you need if these events ever strike in your life.

Preparing your home for Earthquakes

The same applies to earthquake territory with regards to your important documents. In an earthquake area you have to consider what might shake down out of higher shelves and cabinets. Setting cupboards up with child safety locks and prepping your home to withstand shaking can save you the expense of replacing fragile items damaged in a quake.

Consider, too, taking heavier items off higher placement in shelving so they won't fall and cause injury or damage to anything in their downward path.

Setting up a home in an earthquake area is like planning to decorate a ship that sails in heavy seas. One tilt of the foundation and your spice cabinet contents is now a mess on the floor!

When Earthquakes Hit

Though I have not personally experienced any major quakes where I live there is always a chance. We have felt quakes here in Las Vegas as far off as Joshua Tree, CA in 1999. There were several aftershocks that shook our valley.

From Ready.org:

Locate safe spots in each room under a sturdy table or against an inside wall.

Reinforce this information by moving to these places during each drill.

Hold earthquake drills with your family members:

Drop, cover and hold on.

Severe and Heavy Storms

Tornadoes and hurricanes are notorious for the deadly conditions they deliver.

This image is an example of extreme home damage. Thankfully this is something that most of us never have to face. My heart goes out to families who have endured this kind of devastation.

Part of your survival plan should be setting up survival goods in secure, water-proof buckets and containers

Store helpful items in your vehicle, and stocking a cellar if available. This is extremely important especially in high hazard weather areas. You should have a bug-out kit in a couple of areas in your home. You never know when you may have to grab your kit and skedaddle!

Hurricane Prep

When you know the storm is headed your way it is best to have your foods stocked. Canned goods and water are a must. Get bread, batteries, and water before it sells out. Better yet. Keep it stocked.

The day before landfall is when you want to cover your windows with plywood or lower your storm shutters. We used aluminum siding and anchor bolts when Hurricane Andrew came in.

Fill your gas tank.

Make sure your yard doesn't have debris that can be tossed around in the high winds.

When the storm is on land and heading your way, move your family to a place in your home that has sturdy construction. An interior closet or a bathroom is recommended. Make sure you are somewhere away from the windows in your home. The most popular place is the tub with a mattress overhead.

This can be a good place to be in the event of a tornado. Most damage from a hurricane is tornado and high wind related.

The US has a variety of weather conditions. People who live in hurricane areas for instance have the advantage of a warning system in place to track the storm front and know approximately when it will hit landfall. Earthquakes and tornadoes are always unpredictable. With the right planning and knowing what to do to get safely through these adversities is what preparedness for emergency survival is all about!

There is diverse weather phenomenon across the USA. From freezing cold climate winters to blistering hot summers. Preparing for emergency survival on a basic scale is similar where ever you are. Certain areas need a little more planning however. Make your family a prepared family. Do what it takes to ride out what ever storm may come into your area.

Thank you for visiting and have a wonderful day! =)

What weather conditions do you prep for?

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