National Preparedness Month: Home Emergency Plan

9/12/2018 (Permalink)

You can keep your family and house safe in a storm with an emergency plan in place.

As a child, the day I learned about tornadoes at school, I came home and hid in the basement with my teddy bear for the whole night. In the face of a possible emergency, this is how my 7-year-old brain decided to prepare. Unfortunately, as adults, many of us still have this outlook towards storm preparation. We think that it either won’t happen to us, or if it does, we’ll just hunker down in the basement with our kids and hope for the best.

Fortunately, there is another option. Over the next couple weeks, SERVPRO of Charlottesville will be going over the steps of storm preparation to help homeowners in Charlottesville understand the necessity of storm preparation and to go through the practical steps that they can take.

The first step, and our focus this week, is creating an Emergency Plan for your home. This plan should be up to date and every member of your family should be familiar with all the steps, in case someone is home alone or in case he or she is separated from the rest of the family.

The first thing to identify in your plan is how a storm could affect your home. This might start with identifying the kind of storms that are most likely to affect your home. In Charlottesville, we know these storms can include thunderstorms, tornadoes, and flash floods.

The next item to identify is exits in the house. It’s important to note where all of these places are in case of evacuation. Additionally, if your family does need to evacuate, you should identify where you will meet up.

You’ll also need to decide upon a method to stay in contact in case family members are separated or if normal means of communication are down during the storm. This can include having a landmark for the family to meet at. It could also include family members or friends who live out-of-state. These family members can serve as a point of contact for those in the affected region.

Subsequently, in the event of a storm, you will want to turn off utilities to your home, especially gas and water, to prevent further damage. As such, identifying from where these mains can be turned off should also be part of your plan and should be communicated with all family members.

Your emergency plan is almost finished. A few last considerations that you won’t want to forget: plan what you will do with your pets and who will be responsible for them. You should also think about and plan for any medical conditions or special needs that your family members may have. This may be as simple as including a few prescription pills as part of your emergency kit or could be more complex, including a specific method for evacuation.

Of course, you can include more in your emergency plan, but these are some basic items to get you started. Once you have this plan in place, you can create an emergency kit. Check our next blog for our suggested list of items to include.