Balogun Ojetade - The USPI Urban Self Defense Manual

If you do not have a plan, your chances of survival drop. Have a family meeting and discuss why you need to prepare for disaster. Explain the possible threats unique to your environment such as wild fires, severe weather, earthquakes, floods, and the like. Discuss the types of disasters that are most likely to happen and outline a plan of action for each scenario. Plan how you will round up any young children and how you will take care of your pets.

Determine the best escape routes from your home. Plan to share responsibilities and designate specific responsibilities to each member. For example, one person will be put in charge of collecting food and water, another, the one with the most medical experience, will be in charge of monitoring medical supplies and treating injuries.

Put someone in charge of communications to ensure that everyone is accounted for, knows what the next stage in the plan is, and that outside family members and cadre are alerted to the situation. If you have school age children, designate who is in charge of picking them up.

If there are elderly or disabled people in your group, plan to secure their specific needs during a disaster. This could include special transportation, additional medicine or medical equipment, and extra assisted care. If you have pets, designate someone to ensure they have shelter, and a supply of food and water available.

Ask an out-of-state friend or family member to be your family contact. After a disaster, it is often easier to call long distance than locally. This person would act as a Call Center where other family members who have been separated could call this person and tell them where they are, their condition, and what help they need or can offer. Make sure everyone knows this contacts phone number and address.

Rendezvous And Fallback Locations

When a disaster strikes, you and your family may be in different locations, with children at school, adults at their jobs and seniors in the home. For this reason, it is important to meet with your family and decide on two places to meet in case an emergency prevents you from returning home.

Rendezvous: The Rendezvous location should be close to your home and is used in emergencies that prevent you from entering your home, such as fire, a gas leak, or a crime scene investigation. Choose a place, such as the corner convenience store, or a neighbors home, that can also provide relative safety and access to communications, food and water.

Fallback: The Fallback location should be outside your neighborhood and is used if you cannot return to the area because of wild fires, floods, landslides, earthquakes, or mob chaos. A close relatives home in a nearby town would be an ideal destination. Other possibilities could include a favorite hotel, resort, all night diner, cottage, or camping site. Make sure everyone in the family has a personal copy of the rendezvous and fallback addresses and phone numbers.

Bug-In Bag

The first question in a natural disaster is whether to stay or go. You need to make some simple preparations that would allow you to survive either decision. If your best choice is to stay in your home, then a few supplies set aside can ease the hardships.

A Bug-In Bag should provide the tools and necessities to allow you and your family to stay safe and sheltered in your home in the event that an emergency cuts you off from outside aid. It should contain food, water, and medicinal needs for everyone in your home for a minimum of three days. Supplies to include in the kit are as follows:

• Clothing

Keep one full change of clothing in the bag. These should be a rugged long sleeve shirt and long pants, which offers the most protection. Choose thicker clothing if you live in colder climates.

Also essential is an extra pair of comfortable walking shoes or boots.

A pair of work gloves can come in handy when having to clean up broken glass and clear rubbish or doing emergency repairs.