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Written by: Weather the Storm

1. Emergency Management’s 2011 Top Ten Alert and Warning Stories
2. 31 Days of Preparedness from the CDC
3. Organizing Your Home and Business in Order to Facilitate Preparedness in 2012
4. FEMA’s “Resolve to be Ready 2012” Program
5. Prepare your “grab and go-bag” now.

1.  Emergency Management’s 2011 Top Ten Alert and Warning Stories- 

Now is a great time to reflect on some of the major news stories from 2011.  Read more about them at http://www.emergencymgmt.com/emergency-blogs/alerts/Our-2011-Top-Ten-122811.html

2.  31 Days of Preparedness-

In their “Public Health Matters’ section, the CDC has a “31 days of preparedness” blog that can be helpful in keeping your New Year’s resolution of being prepared in 2012.  Check out this information at http://blogs.cdc.gov/publichealthmatters/2012/01/new-years-resolution-be-ready/

3. Organizing Your Home and Business-

We at WTS like to start each new year by uncluttering our homes- removing expired foods, medicines, etc., organizing our shelves in our pantries, closets, and garages.  The new year brings new beginnings and a fresh start, so now is the best time to re-organize your home! 

Now is a perfect time to go through your pantry and decide what needs to go.  Look for items that need to be discarded. When in doubt, throw it out! Each time you buy groceries,  buy 2-3 cans of canned goods to restock your pantry.  Don’t forget to purchase batteries, light bulbs, flashlights and new smoke-alarms (there are new long-life battery smoke alarms- if yours is more than a few years old, you might want to check into this). 

If you do a little cleaning and reorganizing at a time, you won’t get overwhelmed, and will be able to effectively manage your preparedness.  Now is also a great time to go through your first-aid kit and remove any expired items and purchase new ones.
Why not volunteer or consider joining a committee responsible for updating all emergency supplies and information at your place of employment?  That is how most of us at WTS got started with disaster preparedness.  You can be the “go to” person when it comes to emergency preparedness.  Lots of responsibility, but also a great amount of fun and satisfaction!!

At your place of employment, you can help in setting up a disaster plan for your business and co-workers.  You can help prepare your staff and co-workers by disseminating information through a newsletter, or letting them know of this website! 

4."Resolve to be Ready" in 2012-

FEMA has a brand new 28-page toolkit which can be accessed at http://www.ready.gov/resolve that has great information on how to encourage preparedness in 2012.   Three ideas that we at WTS particularly like include the following:

a. Display the contents of an emergency kit at your employer’s reception desk.  This will allow employees and visitors to continually be reminded about the importance of emergency preparedness.  If you are unable to display this list at all times, perhaps displaying the list during times when emergency preparedness is discussed at your job, or even after times of natural disasters, would be a good idea. 

b. If your job or organization is able to do so, a fund-raiser in which you create “go-bags”, (or emergency preparedness kits) and selling them at a reasonable price is another great way to get your community and business ready in 2012.

c. Including a preparedness quiz in your company’s newsletter is another method to keep spreading the word about emergency preparedness.

5. Your "Grab and Go" Bag-

Prepare your “grab and go-bag” now.  What exactly is a “grab and go-bag”?  Imagine you get a knock on your door and it is the local police telling you that you need to evacuate within 5 minutes- perhaps there is a gas leak, hazardous materials leak, possible flooding, etc.  What would you take?  Although many experts believe that you should use a backpack, WTS recommends that you consider a larger duffle bag or carryon with wheels.  You can include more, and it will be a lot easier to move around.  You might want to also consider a “go-bag” to keep at your job as well.  What if you were NOT able to return home and you are at work? We believe a “grab and go” bag has more supplies than a simple disaster emergency kit.  Keep it somewhere where it is easily accessible.

You do not have time to look around and figure out what needs to be brought with you.  You should have enough supplies for at least 3 days. Please check out http://www.redcross.org for specific items for your “grab and go” bag.

Specific items that we at WTS recommend you include- it is always important to include bottled water, but if this is too expensive for you, consider purchasing the Brita™ water bottles with filters.  You can fill up with tap water and use.  Also water purification tablets are great to have.  You may also want to prepare for situations in which you may not be allowed back into your home in 72 hours (e.g. major hurricane, fire).  In this case, you would need to make certain you have your important documents and enough money to sustain you for even longer periods of time.