ND Plans, Practices for National Preparedness Month
FARGO, N.D. - North Dakotans are being urged to get a family emergency plan in place during September, which is National Preparedness Month.
Maxine Henderson, director of clinical services at Family HealthCare Center in Fargo, says the main goal is to get all your family members on the same page - so to speak.
"It's just mainly so everybody in the family knows what's going on, so that, at the time of the emergency, you're not scrambling to find everybody and to try to figure out at that time what you're going to do."
It's also smart, she says, to put together a survival kit with lighting, communication tools such as a cell phone and battery-powered radio, and enough water and supplies to be self-sufficient for two to three days.
A disaster might be an act of terror - or an act of nature, such as a flood or blizzard. Either way, Henderson says, families should also assemble a short-term survival kit.
"To have all the supplies that they need so they can be self-sufficient for two or three days. They have a means for water, some kind of lighting and some kind of communication tool."
The need for emergency planning also applies to businesses, schools and places such as the Family HealthCare Center. Henderson says the clinic staff has learned from past disasters, such as the flooding in 2009 that caused them to close their doors for three days.
"So, for the ensuing two years we did plan that, even if the whole clinic had to close, there might be some key personnel who would be able to get to the site, who could mail medications out or be open for certain hours of the day. So, we did have some of those contingency plans in place."
Medical clinics also have to put another piece in place: Preparing for an emergency in which they'd have to deal with an influx of patients. Henderson says they're planning that drill in the weeks ahead.
"We're holding our annual, big emergency management drill, where we activate our EOC and we go through a whole scenario, have pretend patients come in and activate our whole emergency management plan."
More information about putting together a family emergency plan is online at http://www.ready.gov/.
