The Closer to Home the More Effective the Preparedness

As both a private citizen and a public servant managing preparedness programs at the State and Federal level, I have always believed that the closer to home we prepare for disasters the more effective we will be if those disasters occur. To that end, I make sure that my own family is prepared and I have strived to direct State and Federal efforts to local governments and volunteer agencies to make them integral to the preparedness effort and the primary response teams should disaster strike.

Let's begin at home, the first place we need to be prepared. One of the first things we need to do is determine our potential threats. These threats will vary depending on what part of the country you live in: hurricanes in the southeast and Gulf Coast States; snow in the northern states, particularly New England and the upper Midwest, tornadoes in the Midwest and so forth. Each family needs to know what the common threats are in their area and to a certain extent determine their preparedness actions in response to those.

On a general level, my family has taken the steps we advise all to take. Considering that first responders may not be able to get to your home for at least 72 hours and that electrical and natural gas services may be down for many days, we need to provide ourselves with the means to survive. We have a pantry well stocked with canned goods and other easily prepared foods. In fact we have more in the basement and could probably go for a couple of weeks with the extra food and water we have on hand. Having an adequate supply of drinking water is vital. We also have a first aid kit to treat injuries, a battery operated radio and of course several flash lights. Be sure to check the batteries in your flash lights periodically to make sure they are working. An additional precaution I have taken is to keep several bottles of propane available so that I can cook on the grill should the need arise.

In some disasters, we may not be at home but caught away from the house at work. For that reason I keep an emergency kit in my office with a change of clothes, a radio and most importantly a plan of where my family and I will gather in case of an emergency evacuation. Speaking of potential evacuations, it is imperative that a plan be developed for the family so that everyone's location is known and if necessary or desirable a pre-planned meeting place is defined and known by everyone. For just such a possibility, my wife insists that we keep a half full tank of gas in the car so that we can evacuate in case of an emergency. An emergency travel kit should also be pre-assembled for use in an evacuation situation and it would be wise to conduct training exercises.

While preparedness at home is vital, we do want to enlist the aid and assistance of local volunteer groups to respond to disasters and I, both in my position at FEMA and while Homeland Security Director in Maryland, advocated and worked to bring emergency preparedness as close as possible to the state and local jurisdictions. We are pushing resources out to the regions to be used by local jurisdictions for training, assessing and exercising. The closer to the people that the preparedness is being planned and executed, the better off we will all be.

In Maryland what worked really well was to work with the Governor's Office of Volunteer Services and we were the first state to have a Citizens Corp Council in every county. Using these volunteer organizations, we were able to put an infrastructure in place to prepare for potential disasters. We also worked with community colleges because they are great centers for adult learning and they provide a lot of non-resident training. In fact just recently Community Preparedness formed a partnership with the Association of Community Colleges to provide such training.

The real key to successful citizen preparedness is to keep it relevant and simple. That is why I like the Ready program so much. There is on-line information through the Ready NPM Blog to help individuals to prepare themselves for emergency situations. In the end we are relying on people to be self-reliant particularly in those disasters which overwhelm local emergency personnel and can delay assistance for 72 to 96 hours.

Dennis Schrader, Deputy Administrator, National Preparedness, Federal Emergency Management Agency.