Tag Archives: emergencies

Four Main Areas of Emergency Preparedness

If you are just beginning to prepare yourself and your family to face emergencies and an uncertain future you should look at the four major areas of preparedness. Even if you already consider yourself prepared, it is important to review where you currently stand at least once a year. As your family grows, your needs will change. If you regularly review those needs you will easily be able to make adjustments. 1) Short-term emergency preparedness is the first area that you should be prepared for. This should include an emergency kit for each family member. Five-day kits are replacing the … Continue reading →

Planning For Emergencies: Grab-And-Go Bag

If you a regular reader of my blogs you know that I was living in New Orleans before Katrina and that I am returning home in June– just in time for the hurricane season to start. Although I have lived in the south all of my life and am all too familiar with the threat of hurricane’s, like many people, I never really prepared myself for having to actually leave the city. Like a lot of people, whenever there was a threat I would schlep to Winn Dixie and pick up a few goodies to eat, some batteries, candles, etc. … Continue reading →

The Jewelry That Gives Peace of Mind

Have you ever considered what might happen if your child had a medical emergency and you weren’t around? And if your child couldn’t speak due to a disability or because he was unconscious, how could he get help? William Y. Rial, Former President of the American Medical Association has said, “Even if your children are old enough to understand the seriousness of their condition, why gamble on the ability to communicate in a situation in which they may be unconscious or too ill to speak? If your children suffer from any condition that could endanger them or complicate treatment in … Continue reading →

Preparing for a Trip to the Emergency Room

Accidents will happen, and you may find yourself suddenly needing to take a family member to the emergency room, or urgent care. It is important to be prepared to handle these events in calm and quick manner. Recently I took my twenty-month-old in for stitches on his chin. It was a relatively easy process, because I had prepared for the possibility in advance. Here are five things you should have ready in case you need to make a trip. 1) You should have your insurance cards and other important medical information on hand. If you are going to an emergency … Continue reading →

Planning for an Evacuation

You may have considered how portable your emergency kit is, but have you considered how portable your family is in the event of an emergency. Depending on the age and health of your family members you may want to plan now for what you will need to do during an evacuation. You should also plan in case you need to hike out. You may need to hike because roads are impassable due to an earthquake or other natural disaster. Here are five things to consider. 1) You should consider planning for children under the age of five. Depending on the … Continue reading →

Five Ways to Make Emergency Drills Fun and Effective

It is important to have your family practice what to do during an emergency. Schools are required to have fire drills on a regular basis, and you should too. If you live in an earthquake prone area you should have earthquake drills as well. The goal of these drills is to help your children know what to do during an emergency. You should avoid scaring your children or making them worry unnecessarily. Here are five tips to help make the drills effective and fun. 1) Before your first drill teach your family what you expect of them. This can include … Continue reading →

Store a Two Week Supply of Food and Water

Once you have your basic emergency kit in hand you should begin to expand your supplies so that you have enough food and water on hand to last you two weeks. This is the next step in emergency preparedness. This is an important step because it can take that long to have your power restored. The relief supplies may be slow in reaching you or you may require certain items that they will not provide. The first step you should complete in expanding your supplies is to have two weeks of water on hand for each person in your family. … Continue reading →

Plan for Five Important Events

One important thing you can do for your family now is to plan for what will happen in the future. This includes planning for retirement, your kids’ education, and also the unpleasant emergencies that may arise in the future. It is important to have these plans in place now so that as these events approach you are not left scrambling to figure out how you will manage. Here are five things to think about and plan for now. 1) You should be planning for your retirement. Depending on how old you are you may or may not get any social … Continue reading →

Five Tips for Water Emergencies

One of the most important things you can store is water. The water system can easily become contaminated in an emergency situation. The water system is fragile and can be contaminated in a non-emergency situation as well. Today my town of about 100,000 was informed that our water is no longer safe to drink without boiling it first. Here is a list of other considerations to take into account for a water emergency. 1) When you do decide to boil water instead of buying bottled water to drink you will need to make sure that you do not cross contaminate … Continue reading →

Plan a Rehearsal for an Emergency Situation

One thing that may help you is to have a rehearsal to prepare yourself for an emergency situation. This could be as simple as sitting down as a family to talk over different scenarios to as elaborate as actually having the children picked up from school and taken home in the middle of the day. It depends on what your family needs to do in order to be comfortable in the situation. If you have a child with special needs an actual run through of the event may help to prepare them more for an emergency. Here are some specific … Continue reading →