Note: September is National Preparedness Month . Follow this year’s campaign on Twitter by searching for the #NatlPrep hash tag.
This month, I’ll be rerunning some edited and updated older preparedness essays, along with some new ones.
#13,502
Despite a widespread, albeit erroneous belief that the United States is somehow immune to large scale disasters, for the second year in a row literally millions of residents are about to be impacted by a major hurricane (in 2017= Harvey, Irma & Maria : 2018, Florence in about 72 hours).
Millions of people along the southeastern coastline have been ordered to evacuate from their homes, and what they will return to after the storm has passed remains uncertain.Beyond the trauma of evacuating, staying in shelters, and living without power for days or even weeks, many families could return to find their homes badly damaged or gone. The economic and emotional pain caused by these disasters will be with these communities for years to come.
As traumatic as all of this is for adults (see Post Disaster Stress & Suicide Rates) imagine how difficult, and bewildering, all of this is for kids.Growing up on the west coast of Florida during the tropically active 1960s, I became used to the `drill' of preparing for hurricanes at a very early age. The first storm I really remember was Hurricane Donna in 1960 - which put a large tree limb across our roof as it crossed the state and ran up the East Coast.
During my `formative years’ lot of named storms crossed my path (I spent most of that time living in the green circle around Tampa Bay), and like most kids in Florida, I kept a hurricane tracking map on my bedroom wall to monitor their progress as they waltzed across the Atlantic.
I knew their strength, forward speed, and direction of movement, and dutifully updated the map every 6 hours from coordinates provided by local weather legend Roy Leep.
Call it therapeutic. But I took comfort in knowing where these storms were, where they were likely headed, and knowing when they posed a genuine threat - and more importantly – when they didn’t.
I was involved, and so I felt in control.When you add in cold war jitters, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, constant school duck & cover drills and evacuations, CONELRAD alerts on TV, and films like Survival Under Atomic Attack and `Bert the turtle’ PSAs shown even in elementary school, you’d think you’d have a recipe for night terrors and phobias.
But surprisingly, most of us just took it in stride. Partially because this was the world we were born into, but in large part I believe, because we were encouraged at a very young age to participate in disaster preparedness.
The lesson was that threats were something you prepared for, not obsessed about.Frankly, these early experiences induced me to take an American Red Cross first aid course while I was still in high school, and that undoubtedly led me to become an EMT, a CPR instructor, and finally a paramedic after I graduated.
Fortunately, disaster preparedness – particularly for kids - has come a long way from the heavy handed messaging of the cold war.Today, our concerns are focused more on natural disasters, like floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes. Scenarios that are far more survivable than an all-out nuclear attack, and that can be approached in a more `kid-friendly’ fashion.
Still, the core message – that disasters happen, and we should all be prepared – hasn’t changed.Ready.gov’s kid friendly preparedness page contains games and activities for kids along with information for parents and educators on how to teach simple, but effective preparedness lessons.
Many states have their own preparedness site for kids, such as Florida Division of Emergency Management’s Kids Get A Plan page, which provides an excellent interactive introduction to preparedness for children.
Most of these programs are designed for younger kids, so I was pleased a couple of years ago to find an online disaster preparedness game more suitable for older kids; the ISDR: The `Stop Disasters’ Simulation Game.
The game has five scenarios, with three levels of difficulty in each, to choose from. Earthquake, tsunami, hurricane, wildfire or flood.For more ideas on teaching kids to be disaster and earthquake resilient SHAKEOUT.ORG has a long list of educational resources divided up by suitable school grade brackets (K-6, 7-12).
Although most parents want to protect their kids from undo worry - when disaster looms, it threatens all of us – regardless of our age.Helping kids to understand more about emergency preparedness and community resilience will help them cope (and perhaps, even help) in the event they, or their community, are caught up in a disaster.
Because no matter how much you want to protect them, some things are beyond your control.
