Sometimes it is the simplest things that are overlooked. Case in point? The Family Emergency Plan.
Here we are, so diligently putting away food, storing water and purchasing gear when perhaps one of the most important aspects of emergency and crisis planning has to do with having a plan to get in touch with family members and loved ones after disaster strikes. Equally important is having a plan for meeting up at a safe location as well an evacuation plan for getting there.
Whew! Sounds like a lot of work pulling this all together. But it does not have to be difficult. Below you will find ten easy steps for creating a family emergency plan as well as on online tool to get you started. Don’t worry, this is going to be easy.
The Family Emergency Plan – Let’s get started
1. Sit down with your family members and decide how you will get in contact with each other in an emergency. Possible methods may be by cell phone, texting, email, or a standard land line.
2. Once you figure this out, document the contact information on both a master sheet and on wallet sized cards to be carried by all family members. This document will become your “Family Communication Plan” and it will form the cornerstone of your family emergency plan. It will list all family members, their date of birth, and other important information. Include a photo for each person as well as any important medical information. Also include a contact number for an out of town contact person.
3. Determine a meeting place where you will meet in the event you can not get home. This may be your workplace, the home of a parent or relative, your church or even at a school if there are children involved. Whatever you decide, you will need at least three possible locations:
- Your home or the home of a designated family member
- A safe meeting place near home
- A safe meeting place outside your immediate neighborhood
4. Determine the best evacuation routes from your home or workplace to the safe meeting places. Go to Google Maps or some other online tool and create maps showing your evacuation route along with printed directions. Then take the route and make sure it is accurate and that you understand the directions. This is important! You must drill and practice your evacuation procedure.
5. Prepare a list of all workplaces along with the address, telephone number, and closes evacuation location in the event getting to the pre-designated meeting place is not possible.
6. Also prepare a list of all schools that are attended by your children along with the address, contact names, and telephone numbers. Contact the schools now to learn about their own emergency evaluation policies and procedures.
7. Prepare a list of your doctors and your veterinarian along with their telephone numbers.
8. Prepare a list of your insurance policies, including the carrier, the telephone number for claims, and the policy number itself. Include health insurance, homeowners or rental insurance, life insurance policies.
9. Consider creating a phone tree. Think of your phone tree as a pyramid where the person at the top of the pyramid contacts two people, who each call two more people, and so on, until every person on the tree has been contacted. This will allow you to distribute information quickly without redundancy and without placing the burden of work on one person.
10. Store all of the information you have carefully compiled in multiple locations:
- Your bug out bags and go-bags
- Your family preparedness binder
- On a flash drive that you carry with you
- In your desk drawer at work
One easy way to get started is to go to the FEMA Ready site where you can fill out much of this information online. You can then print out the online document and add the supplemental information on your own. You will find the fill-in form here: Family Emergency Plan Fill-In Form.
Whatever you do, do not fall prey to rip-off artists who will want to charge your hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to prepare a Family Emergency Plan for you. Unless you are independently wealthy, you can do it yourself over the course of one weekend. (Be sure to read my article, The Black Umbrella Rip Off to give you an idea of the sneaky ways folks will try to coax you out of your money.)
Then don’t forget to practice your evacuation plan and to test your escape routes. Your safety – and your life – may depend on it.
Enjoy your next adventure through common sense and thoughtful preparation!
Gaye
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Good reminder. We’re also considering alternate transportation to get kids from school, in the event we’re not able to drive to the school ourselves. Possible bus routes if in the city, bicycle etc.
Regarding the article:something that HAS to be considered and addressed:( and I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade) what if none of the items listed in #1 works? How will friends and family know where to meet? From what I’ve been reading, in a year or so, the earth is supposed to be hit with major solar flare storms, storms that are expected to affect all types of communication, in some cases, damage land line, cell phone towers, and, of course, the world wide internet system. Even if this does not happen, there is the issue of electromagnetic pulse. For those that don’t know what it is, it’s pulse generated by use of a nuclear explosion. That pulse, depending on the height of burst and the amount of explosives used, if exploded over the U.S. midwest, will destroy or seriously effect, in some cases permanently, all forms of communication and anything with a computer chip in it, to include cars, computers, the electric grid, telephone switching offices.. you name it. In a word, everything. It is important enough issue that the government formed the EMP Commission several years ago. Pull up the study of that commission. It is scary. The scariest part of it is that most of politicians that were briefed on EMP downplayed it. With that in mind, not alot was or is being done to protect our country against this threat. It only takes a small ground to air missile launched from a medium sized ship anchored off either the East or West Coasts or in the Gulf of Mexico to cause communication problems and possibly seriously affect the electric grid. The thing is, and this goes according to my training, is to worst case a problem to have an effective preparedness plan . Forgot to mention that though the schools have their plans, so does the local governments have theirs. The two are not always in agreement or have been coordinated, meaning the plans may operate in isolation of each other. A suggestion might be to the list, is for friends and family to preplan ahead of time, if something happens, where to meet instead of waiting until the problem occurs to react. I don’t have the answer(s). I can only point out the problem so that individuals can “war game” it and work out the possible solution. To really appreciate what I’m talking about, read the book “One Second After.” It is fiction, BUT the author, a historian, bases the events in the book on actual events in history.
Wanted to leave an addendum to what I wrote last nite. Been reading on the book, EMP Survival, today. It is very enlightening. Rather than go into alot of detail , I’ll just pass on what the author said so far in the book , based on the EMP Commission’s findings.The U.S., because it is so technologically advanced, is more vulnerable than any other nation to a shutdown of the electric grid and communications due to either solar flares or a small EMP weapon. We are , also, the least prepared as very little has been done to shield communications or the grid from disruption.
FYI:One last thing regarding school emergency plans. I did work in the Emergency Preparedness area for many years. One thing I found out is the State Plan and the County or City Plan takes precedence over any school plan or preparedness plan used by a hospital. For this reason,the schools and the county/city are working off two different sheets of music. As far as evacuation routes, go to the county or city preparedness office or call and find out what their plans are, since THEY will be the ones determining which roads are used as evacuation routes and which will not.
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