Tag Archives: communication plan

First Aid Safety, General Safety Issues

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS IN THE WORKPLACE (GUEST POST)

We never know what the future will hold!  This is why it’s important to prepare for emergencies by storing food and water, not only in your home, but in the workplace as well. Employers should have an emergency and disaster plan in place to ensure that their employees will be protected should an unexpected event occur. If your workplace doesn’t have a plan, it’s important to suggest that they create one or contact your local Emergency Management Office to get the ball rolling.

Contact with Loved Ones

The most frustrating thing that can happen during an emergency situation is to lose contact with your loved ones. To avoid this, all employees should have a predetermined communication plan ready to go. For example, setting up a land line for your home and obtaining phone numbers for company and school landlines gives you additional options for communication should cell towers go down. It’s important to think of every possibility and establish an emergency communication plan that everyone knows.

Food Storage

Help establish a plan of action in the workplace by talking to your employer. Many companies have caught on to this and have created storage spaces for emergency food and supplies. This ensures that their employees would have access to the resources they’d need for at least a couple of days until help could arrive. High quality food storage items are available at reasonable prices online and in stores. You can find products for bulk sized a-la-carte items as well as  meal kits and food staples. These will typically come with shelf lives in the double digits to ensure quality, value and dependability when you need them most.

Communication with Local Authorities

When people in a large area are in an emergency situation, 9-1-1 emergency dispatch can be over-worked and unresponsive. Make a list of the numbers you would need to call in an emergency and keep it posted where every employee can access it easily. Examples of important numbers to list are as follows: Local police stations, state police stations, local offices of Homeland Protection, local National Guard offices, local relatives and friends, out-of-state relatives and friends, American Red Cross, and state and local emergency management offices.

First-Aid

Keeping a fully stocked and easy to use first-aid kit is vital when preparing an emergency plan. This can help you manage any injuries quickly and potentially keep them at bay should additional help be delayed. Providing basic first-aid and CPR training will also be an important aspect of fully preparing your office for first-aid in an emergency situation.

Getting Started

It’s estimated that 80% of adults work for a small company, and most small companies don’t have an emergency plan in place. It’s important for you to talk to someone in the workplace about setting a plan. Start working on emergency preparedness goals and long-term food and water storage. Take one step at a time and determine what you need to make and meet these goals. Set your priorities so you can accomplish each goal. It’s also a good idea to have an office meeting to go over important goals, numbers, and plans in case of an emergency or disaster.

To help you get started on the process of building an effective emergency plan for your workplace, we’ve provided a list of specific questions you should ask yourself to get fully prepared. Follow the list below and get started today!

  1. Do you have a safe source of light in the event of power failure?
  2. How will you communicate and get news if phone lines are not working?
  3. Do you have enough water and food stored for each person in the work place for at least 72 hours?
  4. Do you have a first aid kit and has anyone in the office been trained in first aid and CPR?
  5. What will you do if you cannot flush the toilet or wash if you have no running water? 

About Augason Farms

For more than 40 years, Augason Farms has provided quality food storage and emergency supplies to home and business owners throughout the U.S. Our high quality kits and a-la-carte items provide our customers with easy and affordable solutions for starting an emergency food storage supply.

We thank our guest author for this very informative article, which should give us all “food for thought” about an unforeseen emergency while we are at work! pb

 

First Aid Safety, General Safety Issues

HOW TO PREPARE FOR A HURRICANE WHEN CARING FOR KIDS (GUEST POST)

Shared with us by Emma Roberts
 

If you live in a coastal area that is prone to tropical storms and hurricanes, it’s imperative that you learn to quickly and efficiently respond when severe weather strikes. When you’re responsible for the health and safety of children, emergency preparedness becomes even more of a priority. In order to ensure that everyone in your household, including the youngest members of the family, are coached on proper hurricane preparation and are protected as much as possible, it’s wise to make sure that you’re familiar with the following concepts.
 
Explain What a Hurricane Is For younger children or those that have never experienced a hurricane first hand, it’s essential to help them understand what a hurricane is and why it’s important that they adhere to the safety guidelines you’ve put in place. Being under the misconception that a hurricane is just a high-powered thunderstorm could cause them to take the situation less seriously than they should, which could result in the children behaving recklessly or disregarding safety rules.

Be Honest Without Causing Alarm

To keep kids from behaving in an unsafe manner due to a fundamental misunderstanding about what a hurricane is, it’s very important that you’re honest and to the point when you discuss the matter with them. However, it’s neither wise nor necessary to phrase your explanations in a way that alarms them or causes them to become excessively afraid. Managing the natural fears that will accompany the worst part of the storm could be difficult enough for particularly sensitive children; adding to that anxiety with a needlessly frightening explanation will almost always be more harmful than helpful.

Talk About Evacuation Routes

Should your household be evacuated, it’s necessary for everyone in the family to be intimately acquainted with an agreed-upon evacuation route. This is especially important if you find yourselves separated, so that each member of the household knows where to go in order to be reunited.

Stock Up on Disaster Supplies

Living in an area that’s prone to hurricanes will require you to maintain a constant supply of survival supplies in the event of a disaster. Ideally, that kit will include enough non-perishable food and water to last the entire family for three to five days, a manual can opener, a battery-powered radio and a flashlight with an ample supply of batteries, as well as a well-stocked first aid kit.

Talk About When to Call 911

Kids should be coached long before an emergency occurs on the appropriate times to call emergency services. In the event of a catastrophic weather event, it’s important to avoid backing up the system with non-essential calls, but it’s equally as important to know when a situation is a legitimate emergency deserving of an emergency phone call. Explaining to kids when they should call 911 and how to proceed while on the phone with emergency services can mean the difference between surviving a storm as a whole family unit and a tragedy.

Work Out a Communication Plan

Cell phone towers, electricity and other modern forms of communication may be limited due to storm damage, so it’s essential that everyone in the family, including caregivers and extended family in the area, have an agreed-upon system for communication should you be separated. Designating a friend or family member who lives well outside the danger area for hurricane damage as a liaison for communicating and facilitating reunion is wise.

Teach Kids to Shut off Utilities

In some cases, you may be required to shut off utility lines that supply natural gas, water and other resources to your home. Though kids should not be forced to manage these tasks on their own when there’s a capable adult to carry them out, they should still be instructed regarding the proper procedure for doing so to prevent dangerous conditions if an adult is injured, unresponsive or separated from them. Make sure that you walk through the process of shutting these utilities off regularly, and that you educate the kids on the signs that indicate when doing so is necessary.

Explain the Importance of Resource Conservation

Preserving perishables during a storm can be difficult, especially if electricity service is suspended for an extended period of time. Knowing how to pack a refrigerator and freezer with ice to maintain a safe temperature, being aware that you should refrain from opening them unless it’s absolutely necessary, and acknowledging how important it is to conserve the resources in your survival kit are all essential things to teach even the youngest member of the family. The novelty of using flashlights, survival-kit food and battery-powered supplies can cause kids to be a bit wasteful of those resources, which could be disastrous if it takes longer to receive aid than you planned for.

In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, this is excellent advice to be prepared for the next natural disaster.  We know our friends in the Northeast are still reeling from the terrible devastation Sandy caused.   Hopefully, hurricane season is over for this year, but it pays to always be prepared and explain in detail how to be prepared, especially for children. Pat