Welcome to Canada’s Emergency Preparedness Week. This week the federal government in collaboration with the provincial governments promote emergency preparedness. This program will not be the survivalist/self reliant type of thing many of us work towards, but it’s a great starting point for beginners. The government itself advocates being self sufficient for 3 days after a disaster, or other emergency situation. This, in theory, will give them time to organize and render aid to the area. There are many different scenarios to be prepared for, but the basics outlined here will give you a great starting point for many of them.
So here we go, the basics are familiar to many of us, but worth review…
1 – Have a plan. Decide on a meeting place where your family can meet in case of a disaster. Make sure that it is familiar and accessible to everyone. Have a place to go to in case of evacuation (bug out). This could be a friend or relative. I would suggest one destination in a nearby town and another in a neighboring province. In any case, you should be able to get there on a single tank of gas…and ALWAYS keep your car’s gas tank at least half full.
2 – Make a kit. Have 3 days worth of water and non perishable food that is easy to prepare ready to go. Keep a backpack with emergency supplies such as a flashlight and spare batteries, spare seasonal clothing, phone numbers for loved ones and change for the pay phone. This is no where near a complete list. For a better idea of how to assemble an emergency kit see here.
3 – Know the risks. Educate yourself on the many possible scenarios for your area such as flooding, tornadoes, etc. A great resource is the Canadian Disaster Database. You can search by province, disaster type, etc. It will give you an idea of what HAS happened, and how it affected the local area.
These 3 steps can greatly increase your ability to survive many disaster scenarios, but is by no means a complete or comprehensive plan. They will, however give you a base to work from. Keep up to date by subscribing to this blog and feel free to join the forum here.
I will post daily links to different disaster scenarios and how to prepare for them for the remainder of the week.
Today’s Scenario – Earthquakes
Some links –
http://www.getprepared.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/rthqks-wtd/index-eng.aspx
http://www.pep.bc.ca/hazard_preparedness/prepare_now/prepare.html
http://www.earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca/hazard-alea/simphaz-eng.php
Happy Prepping.