Mary Alice Reporting –
September is National Preparedness Month and calls to plan ahead in case severe weather strikes.
The goal is to encourage Americans to take action by assessing their needs and create a strategy for weather disasters specific to their region, locally being power outage, blizzards, and flooding.
Monica Sanders, former American Red Cross Senior Legal Advisor for International Response and Programs, explains the single most important thing to do is to create preparedness kits, one for evacuation and another one for sheltering in-place.
“And both of those are going to have the same items [like] disinfecting wipes particularly if you’re evacuating to some place you don’t know. You want to have two or three days of water [and] any medications that you or your family members may take. Have cash on hand because if the power goes out, ATM’s [and other technology] will not work.’
She also recommends on keeping photocopies of important documents.
When it comes older adults, important things to consider is having a planned family or household communication plan, medications are in a ready-to-go bag, as well as, extra eyeglass, hearing aids and extra batteries, assistive technology, and a list of medications, doctors, and pharmacies in a waterproof bag.
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