There are real benefits to being prepared:
- Being prepared can reduce fear, anxiety, and losses that accompany disasters. Communities, families, and individuals should know what to do in the event of a fire and where to seek shelter during a tornado. They should be ready to evacuate their homes and take refuge in public shelters and know how to take care of their medical needs.
- People can reduce the impact of disasters (flood proofing, elevating a home or moving a home out of harm’s way, and securing items that could shake loose in an earthquake) and sometimes avoid danger completely. The need to prepare is real.
- Disasters disrupt hundreds of thousands of lives every year. Each disaster has lasting effects, both to people and property.
- If a disaster occurs in your community, local government and disaster-relief organizations will try to help you, but you need to be ready as well.Local responders may not be able to reach you immediately, or they may need to focus their efforts elsewhere.
- You should know how to respond to severe weather or any disaster that could occur in your area-hurricanes, earthquakes, extreme cold, flooding, or terrorism.
- You should also be ready to be self-sufficient for at least three day. This may mean providing your own shelter, first aide, food, water, adn sanitation.
A natural disaster can happen at any time. Some disasters give warning like a storm preceding a flood. Others, like earthquakes give no warning.Once a disaster has occurred, the time to prepare is gone and all you can do is cope. Take the next few minutes to examine what you can do to prepare. Anything you can do today will be like making a deposit in your survivability savings account for withdrawal in tough times.