September is National Preparedness Month, a time to raise awareness about the importance of preparing for disasters and emergencies that could happen at any time. As evidenced by the most recent Tropical Storm Debby that came through Virginia and the CrowdStrike outage, it’s imperative to be ready with a preparedness plan before the next emergency hits, whether its natural or manmade.
When creating your emergency plan, remember these important tips from Ready.gov:
- Build A Kit – During and after an emergency, you may need to survive on your own for several days. Being prepared means having your own food, water and other supplies to last for several days. A disaster supplies kit is a collection of basic items your household may need in the event of an emergency including your pets.
Make sure your emergency kit is stocked with the items on the emergency supply checklist. Once you take a look at the basic items consider what unique needs your family might have
- Make a Plan – Your family may not be together if a disaster strikes, so it is important to know which types of disasters could affect your area. Know how you’ll contact one another and reconnect if separated. Establish a family meeting place that’s familiar and easy to find.
- Prepare Your Pets for Disasters – Your pets are an important member of your family, so they need to be included in your family’s emergency plan.
- Determine any special assistance you may need and include plans for that assistance in your emergency plan. If you undergo routine treatments administered by a clinic or hospital, find out their emergency plans and work with them to identify back-up service providers.
Business leaders and employees can do a lot to prepare for the most likely hazards they will face in the workplace. Ready Business helps you to create a preparedness plan to get ready for what comes next.
- Create a Business Continuity Plan to manage business disruption during an emergency. The goal of a Continuity of Operations plan is to reduce loss of life, minimize damage, protect essential assets, maintain a succession in leadership, reduce the disruption of key operations and achieve a timely recovery.
Learn more about how to put together and test a business continuity plan with the following Business Continuity Plan Supporting Ready.gov Resources:
When Recovering from a disaster, safety is a primary issue, as well as mental and physical well-being. Disaster recovery is a gradual process. If assistance is available, knowing how to access it makes the process faster and less stressful. Post-storm cleanup and power outages may cause situations that require additional safety measures.
- Post-storm cleanup – After a storm has passed, failure to remove contaminated materials from your home can cause health risks. If there is flooding along with a storm, the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) advises homeowners that water must be removed as quickly as possible since it may contain material from overflowing sewage systems.
- Illness Prevention During Storm Cleanup – To help prevent the spread of diseases that can cause illness it is important to wash your hands often, especially during cleanup efforts after a storm. Debris, floodwater and other remnants of the storm may harbor disease-causing bacteria and viruses.
- Power Outages – It’s important to be prepared if you experience a power outage during an emergency. Take inventory of items you need that require electricity. Keep your cellphone and other portable devices charged ahead of time and buy a backup charging device to power electronics.
- Know Your Medical Needs – Talk to your medical provider about a power outage plan for medical devices powered by electricity and refrigerated medicines. Find out how long medication can be stored at higher temperatures and get specific guidance for any medications that are critical for life.
- Private Wells and Onsite Sewage Systems – Power outages can cause problems for homeowners with wells and/or certain onsite sewage systems. If your home is served by a well, the well pump will not work when the power goes out. Keep sufficient potable water on hand for drinking and cooking.
- Remember to keep generators and other alternate power/heat sources outside, at least 20 feet away from windows and doors and protected from moisture; and NEVER try to power the house by plugging a generator into a wall outlet.
- Portable generators can cause carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning, electrical shock/electrocution or fire. Please make sure you know how to properly use a generator before turning it on.
- Food Safety – If you lost power, discard any perishable food that has been above 40°F for two hours or more. Just remember, “When in doubt, throw it out!”
More Emergency Preparedness Resources:
- VDH Severe Weather Preparedness
- Learn how to be ready for an emergency or disaster – Ready.gov.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – Emergency Preparedness and Response: https://emergency.cdc.gov/.
- Check out the CDC’s Preparedness and Safety Messaging for Hurricanes, Flooding, and Similar Disasters guide, which provides preparedness and response resource for all jurisdictions to use before, during, and after a response.