After ‘The Beast’ – Learning To Be Prepared
My first Emergency Preparedness Course was a long time ago, and since then have been involved in logistical support for a several and, until recently, alerts and watches and warnings had fortuitously not materialized for me. Yes, I had developed plans and yes, I had activated them. Both at work and at home, I was pretty prepared.
And then along came THE BEAST. The shear enormity and suddenness of it made mockery of plans and forced everyone to think on their feet. And yes, individuals stepped up in the most amazing way, local groups acted on their plans and got evacuation centres set up, but it was as the Fort McMurray evacuees arrived and stayed that more lessons were learned.
How do you prepare for something of this magnitude? How do you respond?
How did the people drive through and past those walls of flames? Drive? Sit in gridlock was more like it. But there was incredible order, courtesy and compassion. Initially, I put it down to being Canadian until I was told – it was also a result of the training most Fort McMurray’ians received at work. Their workplaces drill in safety, drill in emergency response and it worked, it clicked in.
Everyone who has a plan, even a basic one, knows:
- Keep all important financial documents in one place so you can grab and go – mortgage, medical records, insurance (!!!!), passports, birth certificates, marriage etc. Every important record for you, your family (including your 4 legged family members) – TIP: scan and load on a memory stick that you can add to your key chain.
- Medicine and medical paraphernalia
- Water and food (for more than a few days) – check out ready made kits
- First aid kits
- Phones/tablets/laptops – get backup battery systems. Info on the crises and responses appear to be all online – don’t miss out.
- Valuables – know what is important to you. Gramma’s ring? Photo album? *
- What are the routes if you have to leave. Where would you meet up if you were all dispersed?
- Always keep gas in car (a tip I learned in hurricane country)
- Review, rehearse and update – and include family members and anyone related to the plan.
*(For those of you who think you would automatically know what is important, here’s a story – a very together person who knows about emergency planning, on that fateful day and knowing the fire was literally crackling houses away, stood in front of her dresser looking at her jewellery box. Beside it was her dog’s brush. Guess which one she grabbed. Yup, an old, cheap dog brush.
Double check to ensure you have insurance and that you understand what is in your insurance policy – what is covered and for how much. Review what you have in your house, in your garage, in your yard, and calculate what it would cost to replace EVERYTHING. The aforementioned lady with her dog brush is very glad she did because her house and everything in it burned to the ground.
You can’t control everything but having backup plans and knowing you can rely on the other systems will help alleviate the stress. And while you can’t think of every eventuality, perhaps you can make a game of ‘what happens if’ and think out possible scenarios (maybe when the family is watching a zombie movie –“ what would you do if?”) . Again, review, rehearse, repeat.
What else did we all learn? We learned that our neighbours and our fellow Canadians will support us, our responders will protect us, and that together we can stay strong and we will be resilient.
— Sally Walker, WJS Chief Operating Officer, Alberta Region