Disaster Preparedness, Refreshed

Memo to self: what do I need to do about disaster preparedness today? Skip down to Tornado Tidings if you want to hear of specific Rant Family experiences. fresh and not so fresh.


If you want a list of things for an organization to think about...

The short version: what can my organization do to be prepared for the specific services we expect to be asked to provide in a disaster? This question came up in a meeting RantWoman attended recently. A certain amount of subject matter specifics got thrown around inconclusively; Here are some things RantWoman would like to add:


The Red Cross and ready.gov  are really good places to start. Here RantWoman offers some summary buzzwords. Please note: RantWoman and most of the extended Rant family would fall into vulnerable populations categories. We are the people served by the organizations RantWoman was in the room with! In that spirit, this post includes more detail than some people might enjoyably digest about Rant Family experiences during a number of BIg Events.

--Which of the items below needs to be done now while something is fresh on one's mind? Which items can wait until the next time change / change the batteries on your smoke detector, update disaster preparedness. Hint: don't even TRY to do it all at once; just keep working at small steps.

--Which of your staff are first responders with their own specific first responder expectations? Obvious categories include medical professionals but others such as social workers or, RantWoman knows from still being in info streams, language interpreters may have protocols for how to do the most good even if one cannot travel to one's usual place of work. How would all of this affect your organization's usual operations?

--Have your staff done their individual and family preparedness planning? Communications plan? Medical plan? Plan for service animals and pets?

--Have your clients done their individual and family preparedness planning? Communications plan? Medical plan? Plan for service animals and pets? What can you do to promote this?

RantWoman gets repetitive about personal preparedness. On the other hand, RantWoman can speak based on things learned from people she has been in classes with: when people with specialized needs such as oxygen or dialysis do their medical plans, they do things like ask their providers what to do new rounds of education ripple through the organizations who serve them and can provide special "do the best we can" instructions in advance.

--Is anyone around you getting restimulated about old traumas from news of current events or from normal preparedness chatter. What experiences within your organization inform current preparedness efforts? What can be learned from the stories of past eexperiences?

RantWoman asks about the retraumatized issue based on personal experience: one time while attending a perfectly reasonable presentation from the Fire Department, RantWoman had a spectacular flashback to some moments from a Rant household house fire several years previous. One minute RantWoman was being a perfectly normal participant attending a presentation. The next minute RantWoman was breathing smoke with her heart pounding, thinking the fireman needed to let RantWoman get a frightened Rottweiler out of a basement.

RantWoman had to breathe deeply and take stock: there was nothing around that was going to catch fire easily. More deep breathing and RantWoman realized that she needed to speak up. The presenter kept going on about putting copies of one's mortgage statement in one's disaster kits. RantWoman was hyperventilating because, while she previously might have needed to worry about that, the only people in the room who needed to worry about mortgage statements in their disaster kits were the people getting paid to be there. The actual target audience probably needed to include copies of completely different documents in their disaster kits. Word: be sure to check the relevance of recommendations!


Okay, NOW you are ready to think about how your organization will continue to fulfill its role? What can you realistically expect to offer? What resources might you need?

You're welcome.

Happy preparing.

Here are some further digressions from RantWoman's experience.


Tornado tidings? Check

RantMom has been meaning to call her sister-in-law who lives somewhere in OK. RantMom has also been expressing the wish that RantWoman and Youngest Cousin would check in via social media. Checked in; Aunt and RantMom now playing phone tag which means Aunt is alive and well.

Family communications plan note: RantMom was waiting to call in order not to add to phone network burden. If you are Okay after a disaster, loved ones will be glad to know however it happens.



Memoirs of past events

No one in the Rant Family drives; transit around the Puget Sound becomes terribly erratic during snow events. The rehab facility where RantMom hung out getting physical therapy (At SIX AM, thank you farm girl body clock!) during the Snowpocalypse came up in conversation recently. The nursing home is within walking / rolling distance of both RantWoman and Little Sister--during good conditions. The Snowpocalypse was NOT good conditions. RantWoman is pretty sure RantMom got a visit every day except maybe one, but she only got a visit from one RantSister a day. We love our mother. We talked on the phone several times a day. We did not even try in person.



Some of the staff at the rehab live two buses away from work; many of them wound up doing double shifts, sleeping someplace at work and not going home. RantWoman also knows a nurse who lives walking distance to her job at a different organization. Some of her co-workers who live further away crashed at her house between their shifts.



RantWoman seems to be all about the family communications plan. Two experiences are illustrative.

A Rant Aunt / Uncle pair live in another part of the Pacific subduction zone where communications might also be out if The Big One hits. One time RantWoman tried to talk to that Rant Uncle about communications plan including asking others who live inland to be a common relay point if the big one hits. RantWoman got a whole earful about inadequate disaster planning at the school where that Rant Uncle taught. RantWoman made no progress about the specific relay plan, but these are intelligent people. Probably they will figure it out if necessary.


That's what happened during the Nisqually Quake. RantWoman and Rant Brother lived both of us across a certain bridge from Little Sister and an infant Irrepressible Nephew. RantWoman was the only one who had a phone. The quake hit mid morning and RantWoman's mind instantly went to Little Sister. As soon as RantWoman heard that the key bridge was not damaged, RantWoman hopped the bus. RantWoman stopped at RantBrother's but he apparently also had the same idea of visiting Little Sister.

RantWoman remembers having some kind of meeting on her calendar that day. The meeting was near where Little Sister lived but when RantWoman stopped by there, the building had already been red-tagged due to earthquake damage. So on to Little Sister's, temporary housing in an old building. Old building, it turned out, sustained the kind of damage that would need a capital campaign to recover from; luckily it remained usable in the meantime.

RantWoman met Little Sister wiht Irrepressible Nephew either in the lobby or already out the door on the way with RantBrother to lunch at a Chinese restaurant next door. Somehow in the chaos, RantWoman gleaned from Little Sister that her apartment was a mess from all the things that had fallen off of things. Little Sister insisted that RantWoman and Rant Brother NOT come up to help; she expected neighbors to be able help with that part of recovery. RantWoman also figured out that her task was to run interference.Rant Brother has both substance abuse and mental health issues. He was not going to "Help" Little Sister, but we could all go next door, hang out together and get lunch.

RantWoman remembers little of lunch. RantWoman remembers a LOUD television, punctuated sometimes by especially animated chatter, RantWoman assumes, in Chinese as different visuals appeared.



At the time, RantWoman's only mobile communications device was a wonderful alpha pager with email. At some point RantWoman received email from a far off Aunt. RantWoman seized the moment to reassure Far off Aunt and to ask her to call RantMom in MT at work and tell her her children were all fine. RantMom, it turned out was not at work, She had decided that it was easier to fret about children or look up phone numbers or... or.. at home, but Far Off Aunt found here and RantWoman reported in person seveal hours later.

RantWoman's summary points: everyone in the immediate Rant Family is white, a native English speaker, and has been to at least some college and the only non-native English speakers were not on tap for help. And WE find things a challenge. Consider clients of very different backgrounds.

Okay, now, take into account that lots of people improvise all the time. Prepare and prepare in ways that unleash people's capacity to improvise!