In conjunction with September’s National Preparedness Month the local Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) is advising families within the community to take part in weekly themed discussions to help them prepare for natural disasters and/or emergencies.
The first week in September a family discussion should be on Save Early for Disaster Costs. “So the first week like I said is save savings, so you want to prepare yourself financially for anything that could come up. You know about a month’s worth of savings, preferably cash that you can hurry up and grab and take out with you in your go kit,” said Emergency Management Rep, Whitney Coonrod. It’s important to keep some cash on hand in case of emergencies since ATMs and credit card readers won’t always be available.
Week two’s topic is entitled Make a Plan. “Prepare your family for, what if disaster strikes? Do you have a way to get a hold of people that are your immediate family? A lot of times they say to text rather than to call because the lines may be inundated with other callers so it’s better to send a text,” stated Coonrod. Families should work together to come up with an emergency family plan and practice it. This will ensure that your family is fully prepared when the time comes.
“Week three is to Prepare Your Youth. A lot of times the youth is what is driving our families. They come home from school with paperwork and plans and go-kits and all of that. Listen to them. Get them involved with what you are doing, don’t leave them out of the loop,” explained Coonrod. It’s important to teach children what to do in an emergency situation and help them understand the importance of sticking to the emergency family plan when the time arises.
The final week’s theme is Get Involved in Your Community’s Preparedness. The local CERT team is offering free informational courses conducted every Tuesday evening from 6:00 pm to 9:30 pm at the Carbon County Fairgrounds Events Center located at 450 South Fairgrounds Road. “What that is four weeks of training, we are going to start September 3. We teach you how to do basic fire suppression; the second week is basic medical triage and treatment; the third week is basic search and rescue; and the final week is the ICS system, it’s like an Incident Command for how you work with our first responders,” said Coonrod. The final course to the 4-week program is a mock disaster drill scheduled for September 28 from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm.
To learn more about preparing your family for an emergency disaster situation please visit https://www.ready.gov/ or contact CERT Coordinator Janette Martinez at (435) 636-3758.