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Preparing for emergencies is like learning CPR or how to use anautomatic external defibrillator. Imagine the stress and feeling of helplessness if someone you care about needs your help and you don’t have those skills. Imagine the satisfaction you feel if that happens and you are able to help them because you prepared ahead of time. It seems like the time you take to prepare or be trained is an investment you would rather never see pay off, because using those resources means that something terrible has happened—but the truth is, training and preparing for the unexpected is an investment that pays off every day. If you don’t have health insurance, you worry about what happens if you or a family member gets sick. If you don’t have car insurance, you worry about getting an accident. If you don’t have the skills or resources to deal with an emergency, thinking about emergencies is a source of stress. You don’t want to hear what might go wrong because you feel like there’s nothing you can do about it anyway. The problem with this thinking is that things do go wrong, and there are things that you can do about it, if you are ready. Being ready for the worst pays off every day in having one less thing to worry about.Knowing that you are ready lowers your stress and gives you confidence.Denial and higher stress or confidence and lower stress? It seems like an obvious choice, but many people continue to take the stress and hope for the best. Hoping for the best never stopped an emergency from happening. In fact, it is almost guaranteed to increase the likelihood of injury or property damage because it stops people from taking the steps they could be taking to lessen the impact of emergencies before they happen. The first step to overcoming the stress barrier is to realize that preparing for emergencies doesn’t have to be hard or expensive, and that even taking small steps to prepare can make a big difference when something goes wrong. Emergency preparedness isn’t a machine that has to have 100% of the parts in place in order to work. It’s a tool box. Even if you only have a couple of tools in your tool box, you’re still better off when you need them than if you had nothing. If your community is hit with an extended power outage and the only emergency supply you have is a flashlight with extra batteries, are you better equipped than you would be without it? Yes, of course. And what if you also had bottled water set aside? A little better off again. It doesn’t matter that you don’t have a three-day emergency supply kit or a generator. Those things would be great too, but taking those smaller steps will have already made a difference if that emergency happens tomorrow. And knowing that you have tackled the tough problem of emergency preparedness will give you one less thing to worry about, and will give you a little more confidence today. Check out www.do1thing.com for an emergency preparedness program that is easy and inexpensive, or find another emergency preparedness program that works for you.
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Ronda has been an Emergency Management Specialist with the City of Lansing, MI since 1999. Her focus is on natural hazard mitigation and risk communication. As the first child on the playground to realize that monkey bars were, in fact, a death trap and that the destructive power of the merry-go-round should not be placed in the hands of children, Ronda was destined for emergency management from a young age. She has now realized her lifelong ambition of being able to nag everyone else’s family to take shelter during a tornado warning, as well as her own.
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Preparing for emergencies is like learning CPR or how to use anautomatic external defibrillator. Imagine the stress and feeling of helplessness if someone you care about needs your help and you don’t have those skills. Imagine the satisfaction you feel if that happens and you are able to help them because you prepared ahead of time. It seems like the time you take to prepare or be trained is an investment you would rather never see pay off, because using those resources means that something terrible has happened—but the truth is, training and preparing for the unexpected is an investment that pays off every day. If you don’t have health insurance, you worry about what happens if you or a family member gets sick. If you don’t have car insurance, you worry about getting an accident. If you don’t have the skills or resources to deal with an emergency, thinking about emergencies is a source of stress. You don’t want to hear what might go wrong because you feel like there’s nothing you can do about it anyway. The problem with this thinking is that things do go wrong, and there are things that you can do about it, if you are ready. Being ready for the worst pays off every day in having one less thing to worry about.Knowing that you are ready lowers your stress and gives you confidence.Denial and higher stress or confidence and lower stress? It seems like an obvious choice, but many people continue to take the stress and hope for the best. Hoping for the best never stopped an emergency from happening. In fact, it is almost guaranteed to increase the likelihood of injury or property damage because it stops people from taking the steps they could be taking to lessen the impact of emergencies before they happen. The first step to overcoming the stress barrier is to realize that preparing for emergencies doesn’t have to be hard or expensive, and that even taking small steps to prepare can make a big difference when something goes wrong. Emergency preparedness isn’t a machine that has to have 100% of the parts in place in order to work. It’s a tool box. Even if you only have a couple of tools in your tool box, you’re still better off when you need them than if you had nothing. If your community is hit with an extended power outage and the only emergency supply you have is a flashlight with extra batteries, are you better equipped than you would be without it? Yes, of course. And what if you also had bottled water set aside? A little better off again. It doesn’t matter that you don’t have a three-day emergency supply kit or a generator. Those things would be great too, but taking those smaller steps will have already made a difference if that emergency happens tomorrow. And knowing that you have tackled the tough problem of emergency preparedness will give you one less thing to worry about, and will give you a little more confidence today. Check out www.do1thing.com for an emergency preparedness program that is easy and inexpensive, or find another emergency preparedness program that works for you.
Vlad Magdalin
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