Preparing For A Disaster

Disasters can be as small as a single person or as large as an entire nation. A disaster can be a house fire, a wildfire, a tornado, a hurricane, an earthquake, a pandemic or a terrorist action.

How you prepare is the same regardless of the size or type of disaster. There are several publications out by countless organizations to deal with disaster preparedness.

I am going to supply the links, and let you decide which one makes the most sense for you. If you happen to have a source for preparation, please let me know and I’ll add it to the list!

1/25 Animal Disaster Response Training
The below was provided by HSUS/Jay Sabatucci (thanks, Jay). Many grassroots animal advocates traveled to LA to help the stranded animals, when no one else would. Glad to see FEMA finally stepping up to the plate,in even this small way.To see the free FEMA courses that you can take over the internet, go to
http://www.training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/crslist.asp

First, Personal Preparation
There are a couple of links
I like The Red File – it is well written, concise and has tons of common sense. http://www.theredfile.com/
Citizen Corp has many links to publications to assist you in every aspect, from preparing, preventing and recovering. Very good! http://www.citizencorps.gov/ready/cc_pubs.shtm
2/2 From the Agency On Aging - for elderly and caregivers
http://www.citizencorps.gov/ready/cc_pubs.shtm
1/19 From Dane: Hurricane Safety Organization
http://www.hurricanesafety.org/home2.shtml
6/27 Just found this on the Weather Channel's site:
Protecting Your Pets
http://www.weather.com/newscenter/topstories/040804hurricanepets.html?from=hp_promo 8/13
GREAT Site!


http://www.fas.org/reallyready/index.html Created by the Federation of American Scientists due to their alarm over the poor quality of the Govt.s site

11/5 - Found through Katrina's Angels - Next of Kin Education Program - Making your family safer in 15 minutes or less. http://www.nokep.org/fmp.htm

Emotional Preparation
North Carolina has done a great job compiling links and publications to assist folks with the emotional aspect of any disaster. http://www.dhhs.state.nc.us/mhddsas/disasterpreparedness/index.html
Child Advocate has come out with a small booklet for children and I have found this to be the best out there: http://childadvocate.net/disasterbooklet.pdf
A book entitled Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD. While this book deals with coping with disaster after the fact, reading it before it happens will give you a great weapon on coping before during and after such a serious event.

Financial Preparation
The best I have found in handling this particular aspect is from an organization called Operation Hope. It’s detailed, calls for several lifestyle adjustments in order to put their plan into place, BUT it will work! They have what they call an Emergency Financial First Aid Kit (EFFAK) that you can download for free:
http://www.operationhope.org/fileupload/File/effak_english.pdf - This is 28 pages. And a Personal Disaster Preparedness Guide
http://www.operationhope.org/fileupload/File/pdpg_english.pdf - 18 pages.

Finally, Professional/Business Preparation
The Hancock County Chamber of Commerce gave this to me. I’ve not found it in any files or websites I’ve come across and it’s simple, common sense stuff that is so easy to overlook. I have left this information at the top of their page: http://hancockcountyrelief.blogspot.com/2006/06/chamber-lagniappe.html

I feel these links do the best job of covering all aspects of preparing for a disaster. Please let me know if there are others you find that you feel are better or more concise, etc. I’m more than willing to add to the list!