How Boat Ready is your child?

Boating Safety should not solely about adult water safety.

The following website makes water safety fun for children, and even includes a contest

http://www.boatingsidekicks.com/kidsite/08contest-index1280.htm

The website is quite animated and great for all ages - from coloring pages to comics.

Are You Weather Ready?

We have seen quite a few new Ready websites over the past year.

But are you...

Weather Ready?

http://www.weather.com/ready/?from=article

Ready Classroom - Next Phase of Preparedness

"The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Ad Council have joined with Discovery Education to announce Ready Classroom, an online educational program." (Source: FEMA.gov)

The complete announcement can be found at:

http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=47960

And the official website for Ready Classroom is:

http://readyclassroom.discoveryeducation.com/

The Clock Is Ticking - Is Your Employer Ready For Inauguration?

In the event of a situation during inauguration week or any major emergency, would your business be ready?

Be Informed.
Do you know what kind of emergencies might affect your company?

Do you know what you will do in an emergency situation?

Develop a Business Continuity Plan.
Do you know which staff, procedures and equipment are absolutely necessary to keep operating?

Do you have back-up plans for those operations?

Do you know what you will do if your building or plant is not accessible?

Do you know what you will do if your suppliers are impacted by a disaster?

Are you ready for utility disruptions?

Prepare your Emergency Plan.
Do you have an evacuation and shelter-in-place plan?
Do you have a plan to communicate with employees before, during and after an incident?

Do you have copies of building and site maps with utilities and emergency routes marked?

Are your employees trained for medical emergencies?

Practice the Emergency Plan.
Have you practiced your plan recently?
Do you practice and coordinate with other businesses in your building or industrial complex?

Have you reviewed your plans in the last 12 months?

Review Insurance Coverage.
Have you reviewed your insurance coverage recently to see if you’re covered in a disaster?

Secure Your Facility and Equipment.
Have you secured all the ways people, products and supplies get into your building?
Have you conducted a room-by-room walk through to determine what can be strapped down?

Improve Cyber Security.
Do you regularly install patches to your software? Have you installed a firewall on your computer?

Do you regularly update your antivirus software?

Promote Family and Individual Preparedness.
Do you encourage employees to have a personal emergency supply kit and a family communication plan?

If you answered "No" to any of these questions, visit http://www.ready.gov/business/index.html and learn how to better prepare your business.

What is your RQ?

In our previous discussion, we talked about "Resolve to be Ready". But how do you really know if you are ready?

What's Your Readiness Quotient?

"In recent years, the American people have been urged to “get ready” and to prepare for emergencies – from natural disasters to terrorist attacks. But no one has ever given the public a simple, comprehensive and consistent tool to actually measure how prepared they are. No one has ever provided individuals, communities, and the nation as a whole with a practical “gauge” to assess their preparedness, recognize their successes and identify gaps where more work needs to be done." Source: WhatsYourRQ.orq

Thanks to The Council for Excellence in Government and partners like the Citizen Corps Council, Ready.gov, and American Red Cross, you can learn your "RQ"

Find out what's your readiness quotient at http://www.whatsyourrq.org/

Another Gift Idea

You may hear about this gift idea year after year, but do you have one? What about your family and friends?

Even if tough economic times, these are items every household, vehicle, and office should have.

Do you have a clue?

What the Red Cross does?

And how it may be able to help you, your friends, and family.

Religious Best Practices - Where Do We Go From Here?

One of the focuses of Neighbors Helping Neighbors during National Preparedness Month 2008, has been around children awareness and readiness.

From discussions on Landline, Cellphone, Email to providing a Crisis Management Plan Template from a local school district.

These suggestions apply to pre-schools, K-12, and universities. They also can be leveraged in religious organizations and the workplace.

As we look at religious organizations, there is the concept of

Ready Interfaith TM

There are quite a few religious based websites that provide additional guidance on preparedness, grant/funding options, and best practices/checklists from other organizations.

One organization is the Secure Community Network (SCN). And while this website focuses on one religion, there are best practices that can be leveraged across faiths.

http://www.scnus.org/

Another resource is the Christian Emergency Network.

Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street (Ready)?

Let's Get Ready! Planning Together for Emergencies

www.sesamestreet.org/ready

This initiative was launched today as part of National Preparedness Month. If you have children in your household or are a caregiver, teacher, administrator, etc. this is a must read!

As mentioned in the Ready.gov blog comment, in order to make a true impact, we need to start with today's youth.

And did someone say free?

Another example of a no cost resource available to our residents. Thank you to all the sponsors of the program.

Ready.gov Launches National Preparedness Month Blog

Neighbors Helping Neighbors, a partner in National Preparedness Month, was pleased to provide the following suggestion to Ready.gov and the Ad Council.

Thank you to the Ad Council and Ready.gov, it has definitely had an impact on many people.

For example, every mall we go to, you see the Ready.gov campaign. An excellent job has been done on awareness.

The real question is how do we reach all of the people who are too busy with soccer and band practice, picking up at religious school, meetings, etc.?

How do we reach those that are too busy to notice that sign in the mall?

As part of Ready.gov 2009 we need greater reach into the schools. A year long campaign that is focused on the PTAs, getting the message out through school newsletters.

Take it a step further and get the students active in preparedness.

If we look back at the stop smoking or drinking campaigns, was it not the youth of America that had some of the greatest impact on their parents?

Thanks again.

Neighbors Helping Neighbors

http://citizencorps.blogspot.com

Comment Source: http://www.ready.gov/journal/2008/09/making-strides-in-preparedness.html#comment-form

Landline, Cellphone, Email

A classroom parent mentioned they wanted to receive any important notices by email and not using the phone tree.

A phone tree? That is so 70’s.

However, it is important to remember that some people are still “stuck in the 70’s” using old technology. Not everyone advances at the same pace. Not everyone has a cell phone.

If this organization were to go to a unified alerting system, which is the current trend with technology, there is one small problem. This organization has problems with email and their internet provider almost on a weekly basis.

A further dependence on technology might not be the best immediate solution for them.

This brings up several major issues for the school, how do they handle emergency alerting? What happens if something happens to the building and all the records are inside? Can the parents be contacted?

But the real question, which came up as a result of all this, what is their emergency plan for the school? If such a plan were in place, then how to handle student emergency records would not be an issue. It would also be clearly documented the process for taking care of the students and where they might be relocated.

With all these questions that still remain, where do we start?

Understanding the processes that are in place, making sure that everyone knows them, looking at the legal requirements for an emergency plan at a school, and working with professionals to meet those requirements. Then, later in the process, leverage the technology to support those operational business requirements.

We will leave testing the process or conducting exercises for a discussion for another day.

Once you have all of this figured out, what about the company you work for?

National Preparedness Month Unplugged

How about a National Preparedness Month Challenge Like No Other!

What would happen if there was a disaster? No power for an entire week?

Do you have food in your house that does not require power to cook? What would we do without a microwave oven? The world's greatest invention!

In honor of National Preparedness Month and to do something good for the environment (think Green), unplug your microwave on Wednesday, September 3!

Unplug it for the entire day, for just one day. Eat a home cooked meal with your family and discuss your family emergency plan.

Start here on Ready.gov to learn how to create a plan for your family.

Photo Source: wikipedia.com

National Preparedness Month - Coalition Partner

For the second year,

Neighbors Helping Neighbors

is a proud Coalition Member of National Preparedness Month 2008.

For additional information on National Preparedness Month, please visit

http://www.ready.gov/america/npm08/index.html

or

http://www.ready.gov/

_________________________________________

During the month of September,

in addition to multiple speaking engagements,

we will be comparing different

preparedness tips from around the world.

National CERT Group - CERT connecting to CERT One Neighbor and Community at a time.

As we get closer to National Night Out and National Preparedness Month 2008, please consider joining the Linked In Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Group.

There were several non-location specific CERT groups on Linked In and the managers of those five groups got together to form this one group, linking CERT volunteers across the United States.

Please note: This is not a new CERT team, but a way to link CERT volunteers.

Ready Travel - Concept for National Preparedness Month 2009

Dear Erin Streeter, Director, Ready.gov, U.S. Department of Homeland Security,

As we prepare for National Preparedness Month 2008, I would like to propose a concept and/or theme to be incorporated into National Preparedness Month 2009 - "Ready Travel".

There are many Americans who travel domestically and internationally, both on business and vacation.

But why is "Ready Travel" important?

For example, if there is a conference in Washington DC and people attend from California, will they get an emergency alert if the city needs to evacuate, should I shelter in place, etc.?

In addition, many of the alerting systems in the United States require people to register. If I live in Virginia, but work in DC occasionally or attend a conference there, should I and do I register for both systems? What if I also sometimes go to a college or school campus, as they often have different alert systems? This brings up another issue about location based alerting systems.

Last month, when I was speaking at the World Conference on Disaster Management in Toronto, it was raining pretty hard outside. After I spoke, I was talking to the people from a local emergency management group about how I received an alert back in Fairfax, VA, but if there was an alert in Toronto, I would not know. Would you believe, there was a similar alert going on in Toronto at the same time? Most people at the conference had no idea. I decided to ask the hotel if there were any alerts and they said they were not aware of any.

These examples highlight the need for increased "Ready"ness for travel. Those traveling outside their local cities within the United States, but also those from the United States traveling internationally. As well as, those from other countries visiting the United States.

As you are aware, I maintain a blog "Neighbors Helping Neighbors"
(http://citizencorps.blogspot.com/). Through the website, we share best practices and lessons learned both within the United States and internationally. It is clear there are many documents and resources available in the United States.

You may also want to take a look at these resources out of the United Kingdom. http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travelling-and-living-overseas/publications



PS. Hi Erin :-)

Neighbors Helping Neighbors Blog Joins National Preparedness Month Coalition For Second Year

For additional information on National Preparedness Month in the United States, please visit:

http://www.ready.gov/

It is hard to believe that this website was launched almost a year ago, as part of National Preparedness Month.