Getting and Staying Prepared for an Emergency

September is National Preparedness Month and Jefferson County Public Health (JCPH) urges families to make this month a time to get prepared for any multitude of disasters that may impact occur. From natural disasters like fires and floods, to influenza season or a bioterrorism event, it is never too early to begin preparing for emergencies—even those that are not likely to occur! Plan how to stay safe and communicate during the disasters that can affect your community.

In an effort to increase awareness on a range of different emergencies, National Preparedness Month features a different type of emergency each week.

Week 1:  September 1-5^th            Flood

Week 2:  September 6-12^th          Wildfire

Week 3:  September 13-19^th        Hurricane

Week 4:  September 20-26^th        Power Outage

Be Prepared

Anyone can be impacted by an emergency such as a natural disaster, act of terrorism, or disease outbreak, for example. You can take steps now to help you prepare for an emergency and cope if an emergency happens.

1. Get a Kit

If a disaster strikes your community, you might not have access to food, water, or electricity for some time. It’s important to maintain an emergency kit with enough supplies for at least 72-hours. It is important to consider your family’s unique needs, like medications or food for your pets.

2. Make a Plan

Families can cope with disasters by preparing in advance and working together as a team. If an emergency were to occur, it is imperative to know how family members will contact each other, where members would go to stay safe, and what to do in general during any different variation of an emergency.  Planning what to do before a disaster strikes provides the best protection.

3. Stay Informed

It is important to understand what emergencies are likely to occur in your area and specific ways to respond to each one. You should also understand the ways you can get information about potential threats, such as through text alerts, emergency sirens in your community, or other methods.

4. Get Involved

The best way to ensure your family and your community are prepared in the case of an emergency is to get involved. Find opportunities to support your community’s preparedness so that everyone can stay safe when the unexpected occurs.

Stay Safe

Emergencies can be both stressful and dangerous, and they can expose us to dangerous situations.  It is important to remember that there are things you can do to keep yourself safe during an emergency.

Emergencies can expose us to dangerous situations where we could be injured. It’s important to use caution at all times, and learn basic first aid skills before an emergency. Stressful situations may trigger a heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular event in some individuals. The most important thing you can do during an emergency is to be able to recognize the signs of a cardiovascular event and act immediately by calling 9-1-1.

It’s important to keep meat, poultry, fish, and eggs refrigerated at or below 40°F and frozen food at or below 0°F. This may be difficult when the power is out. A refrigerator will keep food safely cold for about 4 hours if it is unopened. A full freezer will hold the temperature for approximately 48 hours (24 hours if it is half full) if the door remains closed. When in doubt, throw it out – just be sure to throw it out somewhere safe so it doesn’t attract wildlife.

Be Healthy

Emergencies will impact everyone differently. However, some people with chronic medical conditions may be more vulnerable during an emergency. There are a few simple yet powerful things all of us can do to improve our health:

•       Exercise at a moderate intensity for at least 150 minutes a week, and live an active lifestyle as much as possible.

•       Eat healthy by following the USDA’s Dietary Guidelines.

•       Avoid tobacco, drugs, and alcohol. These substances can weaken an immune system and cause a person to become ill, as well as cause many other chronic diseases.

•       Get a flu shot every year.

Please visit the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) website for tools to help.  The Jefferson County Public Health Emergency Preparedness team works to serve the public health needs of the community before, during and after an event.  To learn more, visit our Emergency Preparedness webpage.

What's In Your Family's 72 Hour Emergency Kit?

Get Ready, Be Prepared! As a full-time working mom of three wonderful kidlets, I was pretty sure I had the Get Ready concept down pretty well. Logistics and being prepared are my life! Yet, recently when I walked in to my office at Jefferson County Public Health and glanced down at the stack of “Get Ready” posters and piles of “How to make a 72 hour kit” flyers on the floor, I stopped and questioned. Am I REALLY ready? Do I have what I need to keep my house functioning for 72 hours? Yes, I can get our family of five packed for a week’s vacation. I know to bring along all of those important snacks, and stuffed animal friends, and books, and medicines. I know to plan ahead, but I had several days to make sure I had all of those items packed and ready for our vacation. In an emergency, I won’t have that luxury of time, I won’t have days to plan ahead. I will need all of those things immediately, in a box ready to go. The phrase that summed up my pondering was, Do I have a stash of supplies ready to go on a moment’s notice filled with all those things we absolutely cannot live without?


And the answer was no, so I am working on my 72 Emergency Kit, and I urge you to do the same. Be Prepared…what does that mean? Prepared for what...everything? What a daunting task would be! But when we look at it from the “what can we not live without” frame of mind, it makes it a little bit easier to tackle. Thus, as an emergency response planner, I made it my New Year’s mission to Get Ready and Be Prepared! On a tight budget, I am still in the Get Ready phase, but I know that soon I will Be Prepared.

To start with, there are the stock lists available on various emergency preparedness web sites including FEMA’s of what everyone should have on hand to survive for 72 hours on their own and ideally for up to 2 weeks without leaving your home. But when I looked at the list I thought, never in a million years will my children eat tuna fish for 3 days. I need to customize! We are a tightly budgeted household so I made it a point to look for coupons and combine those with sales to stock my newly purchased Rubbermaid tub with things that I knew my children would actually eat and need for a three day shelter at home, or in kids terms a “stay-cation”.

What did I end up with? Lots of cereal, canned fruit packed in juice that could serve as a drink, granola bars that they like, peanut butter and crackers, fruit snacks, water flavoring packets, flashlights (3 of them so there would be no arguing over who had the flashlight and who didn’t) and batteries, and a myriad of other things (including the “melty medicine” for the youngest kidlet as he refuses any type of liquid medicine). Does my box look like the list that I have plastered all over my office, not exactly, but it is a work in progress and contains items that will keep my family functioning and my kids happy. Because face it, when the kids are whiny, mama is not a happy camper. By continuing to stock my box with items I know they like and our family will need, I am slowly taking one less stressor out of what will surely be a most stressful situation. Do I feel ready for 72 hours yet? Not quite, but I will get there and finally Be Prepared!

Oh, and one other item that has made it to the box….a back up “yellow and blue cold blankie”…..because no blankie would not be a pretty situation!