National Preparedness Month Week 3: Planning!

This being National Preparedness Month, each week the Weston Emergency Reserve Corps is highlighting some specific steps everyone can take to be ready for a crisis. While the coronavirus continues to warrant our attention, a quick glance at the news makes it clear that we still need to be ready for damaging natural and man-made events. Local first responders spend all of their time working to keeping our community safe, and do an excellent job at it. Plus, the Weston Ahead initiative includes town-wide plans to address factors such as Town communication service resiliency and tree trimming to avoid outages. Still, it is the responsibility of every citizen to do his or her own part to be prepared so that the professionals can concentrate on the most critical challenges in an emergency.

The focus for the third week is on creating a COVID-aware plan. Recent hurricanes have dealt us only glancing blows locally, but it’s important to know what to do when a slightly different butterfly (much less a dragon) flaps its wings.

Emergency planning may seem daunting, but getting started can be as simple as having a conversation over dinner. Consider discussing the following questions:

• How will we receive emergency alerts and warnings?
• What is our shelter-in-place plan? What do we need to have to stay home for at least 72 hours?
• What is our evacuation route? Where would we go and what would we bring?
• What is our family/household communication plan before, during, and after a disaster?

Of course every family is unique, so make sure to review whether there are any special needs or circumstances in your household that should be accommodated. These could include pets, medical conditions, mobility constraints, cultural or religious considerations, or any other factor that could impact your ability to either shelter in place for an extended period of time or evacuate on short notice.

Make sure to update your plan based on the Centers for Disease Control recommendations due to the coronavirus, including having extra masks and sanitizing products on-hand and being aware of any vaccination or social distancing requirements of evacuation destinations.

If you have kids, consider including them in the planning process. First of all, it can be reassuring to them during these uncertain times that their family has thought about “what if…” Second, if it is ever necessary to use the plan, their familiarity with it will make implementation much smoother. To really get them on board, there are fantastic resources and activities available at www.ready.gov/kids.

There are many templates and checklists available to support your planning, including those at www.ready.gov/plan and in the Community Emergency Preparedness & Response Guide on the Town of Weston’s website (www.westonma.gov/Prepare). Write down your plan in a place where all involved can access it. There are numerous online note and document sharing applications that can work well, but also have printed copies for when online access isn’t available.

Lastly, for those leading organizations, FEMA’s Organizations Preparing for Emergency Needs (OPEN) can help with formalizing plans and much more. The web-based course lays out 10 preparedness actions you can take, whether you’re a nonprofit, small business, faith-based organization, or other community-based group.

Benjamin Franklin admonished, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” You can do better than that. You can start small, but start now. Or over dinner tonight at the latest.