Note: This is day 8 of National Preparedness Month. Follow this year’s campaign on Twitter by searching for the #NPM or #NPM12 hash tag.
This month, as part of NPM12, I’ll be rerunning some updated preparedness essays (like this one) , along with some new ones.
# 6543
As any Boy or Girl Scout will tell you, emergency preparedness isn’t just for adults. And the Federal government obviously agrees since they maintain a website called Ready Kids as part of the Ready.gov program.
Here – with your guides Flat Stella & Flat Stanley- you’ll find a fun, interactive way to introduce young children to the concept of preparedness. You’ll also find an assortment of Fun & Games, all with an emergency preparedness theme.
For a somewhat older crowd (teenagers and young adults, mostly), in May of 2011 the CDC unleashed their highly successful Zombie Preparedness blog - cleverly written by Rear Admiral Ali S. Khan - who told us (with tongue firmly implanted in cheek) that if we are prepared for a Zombie Apocalypse . . . we’re pretty much prepared for anything.
Photo Credit CDC
Once the news of a `zombie’ blog appearing on the CDC site went viral on Twitter, the number of visitors to the Public Health Matters Blog temporarily overwhelmed their server.
Heartened by the huge response, six months later the CDC released a sequel to this highly effective campaign, with a 2-part Graphic Novel preaching preparedness, and a number of tie-in posters and even T-Shirts that you can purchase.
All are designed to drive home the importance of Getting a kit, Making a plan, and Being prepared
To learn how, go to the CDC’s THE ZOMBIE PREPAREDNESS PAGE
Even with the addition of a mock zombie apocalypse, today’s preparedness messages are far kinder and gentler than the ones many of us were exposed to growing up during the height of the cold war.
My generation grew up indoctrinated by Bert the Turtle civil defense cartoons, incessant CONELRAD testing on the radio and TV, and the never-ending threat of nuclear annihilation.
"This was a test. Had this been a real emergency, you'd have been instructed to turn to your local CONELRAD broadcaster for more information. This was only a test".
During the Cuban Missile crisis, at the age of 8, I got the short course in radiation sickness, fallout shelters, `duck & cover’ drills, and emergency evacuations from my local elementary school.
I recounted some of those experiences in a blog called NPM11: Creating A Family Communications Plan.
I certainly don’t advocate that preparedness lessons be taught to kids today in such a stark, disturbing, and traumatic fashion today
But the Ready Kids site shows that the subject can be approached in a child-friendly non-threatening manner.
When a disaster threatens, it threatens all of us – regardless of our age. Helping kids to understand more about emergency preparedness will undoubtedly help them cope (and perhaps, even help) in the event they, or their community, are caught up in a disaster.
