Posted by: Public Health Matters Blog

18Jul / 2016

Parents and Kids Prepare for Emergencies Together

Kids on a camping trip

School is out, and summer is a time for hanging out with family and friends, taking vacations and going away to camp. It is also the season for disasters like tornadoes, hurricanes and wildfires.

Include your children in planning and preparing for emergencies to help keep them safe.

  1. Watch the Ice Age: Collision course preparedness video with your child. Talk to them about what they learned about preparing for an emergency and ask if they have any questions.

Click here to view the embedded video.

  1. Discuss the types of disasters that can happen where you live, go to school and play. Explain how it may be hard to reach family and friends when a disaster strikes – the power may be out and cell phone towers can be down. It is important to have a plan to reunite with the people you love during an emergency.
  1. Help your child choose three emergency contacts that their camp counselor, teacher or caregiver can reach out to during an emergency. Help them practice learning the phone numbers for these three people.

Remember: A friend or relative who does not live in your town may be easier to reach during an emergency because local power and phone services may be disrupted.

  1. Make ICE (in case of emergency) cards Enter your child’s three emergency contacts and their medical information. Personalize the ICE card with a photo and print them at home.
  1. Help your child identify a bag, wallet or other place where they will keep their ICE card. Make sure it is in a place they will remember and easy for them to find.

More resources to prepare for emergencies with your children:

Posted by in children, disasters, General, Natural Disasters, parents, Preparedness

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24Sep / 2014

Pet Preparedness

TobyBanner1

Countless disasters have shown that pet owners can quickly become a vulnerable population in the face of a natural disaster or emergency. Should you stay at home with your pet? Should you take your pet with you? Where can you go with your pet? Should you leave your pet behind?

It is extremely important for the safety of pet owners and pets, to have a plan for caring for pets during a disaster. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) helped provide emergency shelter and care for more than 8,500 animals displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Following Hurricane Sandy, the ASPCA assisted more than 30,000 pets in New York and New Jersey. It is estimated that 30 to 40 percent of the people who refused to leave their homes after Hurricane Katrina were staying to care for their pets, and over 600,000 pets were killed or left without shelter. If you evacuate your home, take your pets. Plan ahead and do not leave them behind. Pets most likely cannot survive on their own, and if by some remote chance they do, you may not be able to find them when you return.

Identift pet friendly sheltersWith pets, the best way to protect your furry, scaly, or slimy family member is to plan ahead. They can’t do it for themselves and so it is up to you to have an emergency plan in place for your pets.

In many emergency situations, people will risk their lives to stay behind with their pet. If you think it through and prepare in advance, you will know what to do in order to protect yourself, your family, and your pets.

Things you can do:

1)      Pet-Friendly Shelters. Not all shelters accept pets. Before an emergency, make sure you figure out where you will go that is safe for you and your pet. Find out which hotels are pet-friendly, and make sure you look into hotels in your community (for short-term needs) and hotels out-of-town that are pet-friendly in case you have to evacuate. Contact your vet for a list of boarding kennels and facilities that will be open to taking pets in an emergency.   Does your local animal shelter provide emergency shelter or foster care for pets? Find out!

2)      Designated Caregivers. There are a few reasons why it is a good idea to identify friends or relatives that will be willing to care for your pet if you are unable to do so. You may not be home when an emergency occurs, so line up a neighbor or friend that can check on and care for your pets. Also, ask friends and relatives outside of your immediate area if they would be willing to take in your pet should you have to evacuate.

pet emergency kit checklist3)      Emergency Kit. Before you find yourself in an emergency situation, pack a pet emergency kit so that you are ready to care for your pet if a disaster hits. Pack 3-7 days worth of pet food (dry or canned), bottled water, medications, veterinary records, a pet carrier, litter and disposable litter trays, manual can opener, food dishes, first aid kit, and other supplies with you in case they’re not available later. For a complete list, see our Ready Wrigley pet emergency kit supply list.

4)      Vet records and identification. Keep paper copies of your pet’s vet records in a safe and accessible place. Make sure identification tags are up-to-date and securely fastened to your pet’s collar. Pet-friendly shelters, kennels, or boarding facilities that you arrange ahead of time will need to be able to identify your pet and know your pet’s medical history.

5)      Microchip your pet. If you are separated, this is the best and easiest way to be reunited with your pet! A typical microchip costs around $45, but shelters and organizations often hold events where the cost is much cheaper.

6)      Download the Pet First Aid App from the Red Cross, or the ASPCA app.

ASPCA sticker7)      ASPCA sticker. Get a free pet emergency alert sticker for your home. The ASPCA stickers are used to make sure rescue workers know that you have pets inside your home, the types of pets, and your vet information.

Pets rely on you to care for them every day and you rely on them for comfort and companionship. Don’t let an emergency or disaster prevent you from caring for or separate you from your pets. Have a plan, get a kit, and be prepared for your pet’s safety as well as your own.

Posted by in ASPCA, cats, disaster, dogs, General, pets, Preparedness, Preparedness Month, Response

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18Aug / 2014

Ready CDC

Ready CDC logo

By Victoria Harp

CDC leads the nation in responding to public health emergencies, such as outbreaks and natural disasters. While the agency encourages the public to be aware of personal and family preparedness, not all CDC staff  follow those guidelines. In an effort to increase personal preparedness as part of workforce culture, CDC created the Ready CDC initiative. Targeting the CDC workforce living in metropolitan Atlanta, this program recently completed a pilot within the organization and is currently being evaluated for measurable improvements in recommended personal preparedness actions. Ready CDC is co-branded with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Ready.gov program, which is designed for local entities to take and make personal preparedness more meaningful to local communities. Ready CDC has done just that; the program uses a Whole Community approach to put personal preparedness into practice.

IMG_1043_smFEMA’s Whole Community approach relies on community action and behavior change at the local community level to instill a culture of preparedness. To achieve this with Ready CDC, the CDC workforce receives the following:

  • The support needed to participate from their employer
  • Consistent messaging from a trusted, valued source
  • Localized and meaningful personal preparedness tools and resources
  • Expertise and guidance from local community preparedness leaders
  • Personal preparedness education that goes beyond the basic awareness level to practicing actionable behaviors such as making an emergency kit and a family disaster plan

Are you Ready CDC?

When the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response Learning Office conducted an environmental scan and literature review, as well as an inward look at the readiness and resiliency of the CDC workforce, the need for a program like Ready CDC emerged. Although CDC has highlighted personal preparedness nationally in its innovative preparedness campaigns, there have been no formal efforts to determine if or ensure that the larger CDC workforce is prepared for an emergency. After all, thousands of people make up CDC’s workforce in Metro Atlanta, throughout the United States, and beyond.

The public relies upon those thousands of people to keep the life-saving, preventative work of CDC going 24/7. When the CDC workforce has their personal preparedness plans in place, they should be more willing and better able to work on behalf of CDC during a local emergency. Research has shown that individuals are more likely to respond to an event if they perceive that their family is prepared to function in their absence during an emergency*. Also, the National Health Security Strategy describes personal preparedness in its first strategic objective as a means to build community resilience.

Local Partnerships for the CDC

Ready CDC intends to move the dial by using its own workforce to understand behaviors associated with preparedness, including barriers to change. This is the most intriguing aspect of Ready CDC for the local community preparedness leaders involved. Most community-level preparedness education is currently conducted at the awareness level. Classes are taught and headcounts are taken, but beyond that, there is no feedback or follow-up to determine if their efforts are leading to desired behavior changes. Ready CDC is currently measuring and studying the Ready CDC intervention and that has local community preparedness leaders around metro Atlanta very interested in its outcomes.

IMG_1072_smWhile CDC has subject matter experts on many health-related topics, CDC looked to preparedness experts in and around the Metro Atlanta community to help make Ready CDC a locally-sustainable intervention. After all, the best interventions are active collaborations with community partners**. Key community partners from the American Red Cross; Atlanta-Fulton County, DeKalb County, and Gwinnett County Emergency Management Agencies; and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency played ongoing and significant roles in developing the program content, structure, and sustainability needed for CDC’s Metro Atlanta workforce. CDC gets the benefit of their time and expertise while partners have the satisfaction of knowing their efforts are making a difference in and contributing to the resilience of their communities. Also, because of these great partnerships, one lucky class participant wins a family disaster kit courtesy of The Home Depot and Georgia Emergency Management Agency.

Ready CDC is currently available to the CDC workforce in and around Metro Atlanta; however, efforts are underway to ensure that the broader CDC workforce is reached in 2015. For more information about Ready CDC, please email ready@cdc.gov.

References:

*Barnett et al. 2009; Barnett et al., 2012; Parker et al., 2005 Barnett, D. J., Balicer, R. D., Thompson, C. B., Storey, J. D., Omer, S. B., Semon, N. L., . . . Links, J. M. (2009). Assessment of local public health workers’ willingness to respond to pandemic influenza through application of the extended parallel process model. PLoS One, 4(7), e6365. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0006365

*Barnett, D. J., Thompson, C. B., Errett, N. A., Semon, N. L., Anderson, M. K., Ferrell, J. L., . . . Links, J. M. (2012). Determinants of emergency response willingness in the local public health workforce by jurisdictional and scenario patterns: a cross-sectional survey. BMC Public Health, 12, 164. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-12-164

*Parker, C. L., Barnett, D. J., Fews, A. L., Blodgett, D., & Links, J. M. (2005). The Road Map to Preparedness: a competency-based approach to all-hazards emergency readiness training for the public health workforce. Public Health Rep, 120(5), 504-514.

**Neuhauser, L., Kreps, G.L., & Syme, S. L. (2013). Community participatory design of health communication interventions. In D.K. Kim, A. Singhal, and G.L. Kreps, (Eds.), Health communication: Strategies for developing global health programs (pp. 227-243). New York:  Peter Lang Publishers.

Posted by in business, Emergency kit, General, prepare, Preparedness, public health, Ready CDC, workforce

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