Preparing and Getting Trained:

Being prepared for emergencies is crucial at home, school, work and in your community.

The American Red Cross offers courses to help you prepare for emergencies. To take a Red Cross course, sign up through your local chapter. You can also enter your zip code in the box at the right to find your local Red Cross.

Disaster can strike quickly and without warning. It can force you to evacuate your neighborhood, workplace or school or can confine you to your home. What would you do if basic services - water, gas, electricity or telephones - were cut off?

Local officials and relief workers will be on the scene after a disaster, but they cannot reach everyone right away. The best way to make you and your family safer is to be prepared before disaster strikes.

• Get or build an emergency supply kit,
• Make a plan that includes evacuation information.
• Include emergency contacts for staying connected with loved ones during a disaster.
• Be informed about the types of disasters that you may face and the best ways to respond to them

You can also Get a Kit, Make a Plan, and Be Informed by taking the Be Red Cross Ready

Online Educational Presentation

Prepare Your Home and Family:

Home fires are the most common disaster that the Red Cross responds to and also the most preventable.  Families need to take a few simple precautions to avoid tragedies, such as having working smoke alarms on every level of their homes and having family fire escape plans in place to help get everyone out of the house safely.  The American Red Cross recommends the following when creating your family escape plan:

• Identify two ways to escape from every room in the home.
• Practice your escape plan at least twice a year.
• Select a safe location away from the home where your family can meet after escaping.
• Consider purchasing and storing escape ladders for rooms above ground level and make sure to learn how to use them.
• If you see smoke or fire in your first escape route, use your second way out.
• If you must exit through smoke, crawl low under the smoke.
• Before escaping through a closed door, feel the door before opening it.  If it is warm, use your second escape route.
• If smoke, heat or flames block both of your exit routes, stay in the room with the door closed.
• Place a rolled towel underneath the door.
• Signal for help by waving a brightly colored cloth or shining a flashlight at the window.
• If there is a telephone in the room, call the fire department and let them know your exact location inside the home
• Once you've escaped, stay out.

Persons with Disabilities:

Emergencies can happen at a moment's notice. It is important to know your plans ahead of time so you are better prepared for any urgent situation. The booklet below gives tips on getting informed, making a plan, assembling a kit, and maintaining these plans for people with mobility problems or who have hearing, learning, or seeing disabilities.

These tips provide you and your caregivers with considerations needed to help manage communications, equipment, pets and home hazards.

The booklets are co-authored by the American Red Cross and Department of Homeland Security, FEMA and are available from your local chapter of the Red Cross.

Preparing for Disaster for People with Disabilities and other Special Needs  - A4497.pdf

Seniors:

The American Red Cross recommends that senior citizens create a personal support network made up of several individuals who will check in on them in an emergency to ensure their wellness and to give assistance if needed.  This network can consist of friends, roommates, family members, relatives, personal attendants, co-workers and neighbors.  It is suggested that a minimum of three people are identified at each location where one regularly spends a significant part of their week, for example; at work, home, school or volunteer site.

Create a personal support network before a disaster:

• Make arrangements prior to an emergency for your support network to immediately check on you after a disaster.
• Exchange important keys.
• Show where you keep emergency supplies.
• Share copies of your relevant emergency documents, evacuation plans and emergency health information card.
• Agree & practice a communications system regarding how to contact each other. (other then telephone).
• You and your personal support network should always notify each other when you are going out of town.
• The relationship should be mutual. Learn about each other's needs and how to help each other in an emergency.
• Share the responsibilities for food, supplies, preparation, organizing neighborhood, meetings and translating.