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Be Prepared to be Away During an Emergency

Kids hugging their mom before heading off to their first day of school.

July 24 is National Parents Day

Emergencies can happen anywhere, at any time, including when you’re not with your children and pets. It’s a scary thought. But you can take steps to protect them when you’re not around to do it yourself.

Camp & Childcare Parents

On any given weekday during the school year, an estimated 69 million children are in school and childcare.(1) During summer, some of those same children are in camps and childcare.

Parents, guardians, and other caregivers want to know their children are safe when they’re away from home. Camp and childcare providers play an important role in giving parents and guardians peace of mind. They should have family reunification plans and hold regular drills to help children and staff practice staying safe in the event of an emergency.

In addition, here are some ways you can prepare for an emergency that happens when you are not with your child.

Keep your contact information updated. Make sure your child’s camp or childcare knows how to reach you.
Send your child to camp or childcare with an updated Ready Wrigley Backpack Emergency Card.
If your child has a special health condition, such as a blood disorder, make sure staff know what signs to look for in your child that might signal a health problem and the procedure to ensure appropriate care.
Provide your child’s camp or childcare with any necessary personal needs, prescriptions, copies of important paperwork, and medical supplies and devices. Everyone with asthma needs his or her own asthma action plan. Provide staff with a copy of your child’s asthma action plan and instructions on how to use his or her inhaler.

Knowing camp or childcare providers have an emergency plan and the supplies they need to care for your child can help you feel better about leaving them in the care of others.

Pet Parents

Pets are family, too. It’s natural for pet parents to feel anxious about leaving their pet in the care of someone else, such as a pet sitter or kennel, or if you have someone nearby who can check in on them. Having someone who can check up on your pet if they are not somewhere safe can give you peace of mind.

Here are suggested steps you can take to help keep your pets healthy and safe if an emergency happens while you’re away.(2)

Make sure your pet has plenty of food. Write out feeding instructions, including portion size and other special considerations, such as the feeding order of multiple pets.
Check that your pet has enough medicine. Write out instructions for giving prescription medicines and where they’re kept. Keep medicines up and away from children and pets.
Write out your itinerary and contact information, including your cell phone number and the name and phone number of where you’re going.
Leave contact information for your veterinarian and one or two people you trust to make decisions in case you can’t be reached. Be sure to ask those people before you do this. Contact your veterinarian’s office to let them know you have a pet sitter.
Leave the pet sitter with copies of important paperwork, including a list of vaccinations and dates received.
Microchip your pet.
Make sure your pet wears collars and tags with up-to-date contact information and other identification.
Keep your pet’s carrier or crate near the exit. Tell the sitter where your pet might hide when it feels stressed or scared.
Prepare a pet emergency kit, including first-aid supplies and detailed instructions on how to use it.
Leave instructions about your home, such as garage door codes, utility shutoff instructions, and your neighbor’s names and phone numbers.

Prepping your pet sitter or a person you trust to check in on your pet can help ensure that your pet gets the best possible care when you’re away.

Reuniting After an Emergency

Separation from one’s family during or after an emergency can have mental and physical effects on everyone involved, including parents and guardians, children, and pets.

Reunification is the process of returning children and pets to their families as quickly as possible after an emergency. The faster reunification happens after an emergency, the better.

Learn more about reuniting with loved ones after an emergency.

References

Resources

Thanks in advance for your questions and comments on this Public Health Matters post. Please note that CDC does not give personal medical advice. If you are concerned you have a disease or condition, talk to your doctor.

Have a question for CDC? CDC-INFO (http://www.cdc.gov/cdc-info/index.html) offers live agents by phone and email to help you find the latest, reliable, and science-based health information on more than 750 health topics.

Educating Children After Hurricane Maria

In September 2017, Hurricanes Irma and Maria roared through the Caribbean just 12 days apart. The schools on St. Croix and St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) did not re-open until October 24. Teachers talked about how many of the books and materials in their classrooms were moldy and how teachers and staff had to help the janitorial staff clean up classrooms. Parents shared stories of their children coming home from school with mosquito bites all over their arms and legs. Schools could not always run the air-conditioning because they were operating using generators.

Finding a natural fit

As a team lead in the Division of Adolescent and School Health, I have expertise in how health departments and federal agencies should work with schools. So when I was deployed to support health communication activities in the US Virgin Islands after Hurricane Maria, I offered to support the USVI Department of Health doing health communication outreach to schools. We worked quickly to connect with schools and distribute materials to students and their families about how to stay safe and healthy after a hurricane.

Making a vision a reality

I worked with Director of Public Relations, Nykole Tyson, at the USVI Department of Health and the USVI Department of Education to determine how many children were enrolled on St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John and which educational materials from CDC to distribute. With support from the CDC Foundation, we printed and distributed flyer packets for over 16,000 K-12 students on the three islands to take home to their families. The packets contained CDC-developed materials about how to stay safe after a hurricane, including tips for food and water safety, how to prevent mosquito bites, the health risks from mold, how to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning, and mental health. Since 35% of the children on St. Croix speak Spanish, we made the messages available in both English and Spanish.

Each child was also given a copy of the Ready Wrigley Flooding and Mold Activity Book as part of the flyer packet. Ready Wrigley is a series of CDC-developed activity books for children 5-9 years old and their families to help them talk about and prepare for emergencies. There are nine Ready Wrigley books that provide tips, activities and a story about disaster preparedness. The flooding and mold activity book talks specifically about safe mold clean-up after a flood and how kids should never touch mold and always tell a grown-up if they see mold.

Giving children a voice

Malaika Washington reading the Ready Wrigley Flooding and Mold activity book to students in USVI. — Sharing the Ready Wrigley Flooding and Mold activity book with students in USVI.

American Education Week takes place every November. The USVI Department of Education contacted Director Tyson and asked her to read to elementary school students on St. Croix. She asked me if I would like to join her visits to kindergarten and first grade classrooms. I jumped at the chance to interact with students in-person and suggested we read the Ready Wrigley Flooding and Mold Activity Book. I even colored the pictures in the book and completed the activities so the children could follow along. We shared the Ready Wrigley books with the teachers at each school we visited, giving teachers enough copies of the book for every student to take one home.

All of the students really wanted their stories heard. One first grader recounted how his mother and grandparents told him to stay far away from the cleaning products while they cleaned up the mold in their home. Another little girl shared how she was personally impacted by mold. She had to sleep on the sofa in her home because there was mold all over her bed and the other furniture in her bedroom. Several other children described the mold they found on the front door of their homes after the hurricane.

Fulfilling a passion

Working with school-aged children is so rewarding. This deployment experience was the best I could have hoped for. The time I spent in the USVI made me realize my personal and professional goal to provide public health education materials to children and their families. I have always believed that public health prevention work should begin with school-aged youth and it is my lifelong public health mission to ensure that they have a voice.

Malaika Washington has been a Commissioned Corps Officer in the United Stated Public Health Service since October 2009. She is a team lead in the Division of Adolescent and School Health, the only division at CDC that funds education agencies directly. Her deployment to the U.S. Virgin Islands for the 2017 HHS Hurricane Response was the first time she deployed for a public health emergency.

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