Family Emergency Preparedness Tips

Five Ways To Prepare Your Family For Emergencies

Being as prepared as possible is the only way to safeguard your family against preventable mishaps during an unpreventable emergency. Remember, emergencies come in all shapes and sizes, so the more diverse ways in which you prepare, the better.

Create a Family Emergency Plan

Not just have a plan in place, but regularly go through and practice that plan, and amend it as needed. Ready.GOV has a thorough page on making an effective plan here. Remember your family may not be together when the emergency takes place, so the immediate priority in that plan should be instructions for establishing communication and convening with all members of your family. However, it should also be addressed in that plan whether to shelter in place, or rendezvous at a predetermined location.

Keep Up-To-Date and Accurate Medical Records

This includes a list of daily medications each family member is on, and other special requirements such as dietary restrictions, known allergies, conditions, disabilities or mental health needs, and any necessary treatments for those conditions. Check out Jase Daily prescription supply to ensure you are never without the medications you need.

Put Together an Emergency Kit

A comprehensive emergency kit should go beyond just having a first aid kit and a cellphone. Your emergency kit should – at a minimum – include basic things such as:

• Water

• Food

• Flashlight (with extra batteries)

• Dust/Contaminant Masks

• Soap, Hand Sanitizer, and Disinfectant Wipes

• Cash or Travelers Checks

• Copies of Important Documents

• Cell Phone and Chargers/Cables

• A thorough First Aid Kit including Over-The-Counter Drugs

• Extra Supplies of Prescriptions for all members of the Family

Emergencies are traumatic and stressful even when your family is prepared and rehearsed, but they can become deadly if you are without access to life-dependent medications.

Education

Learn basic first aid, CPR, symptom identification for medical conditions within the family, various survival skills, alternate methods of local travel, alternate methods of communication and staying informed on local, and national events. Follow your local news outlets and local law enforcement on social media as this will usually be the most up to the minute source of information, and instruction. Consider taking classes as a family unit. There are both local and online classes tailored to Family Preparedness that you can all complete together so no one has any knowledge gaps, and everyone knows what to do, and who will do what.

Build A Community Beyond Your Immediate Family

There’s a reason they say there’s strength in numbers. Allocating tasks and having additional people can help make a common goal more easily achievable. Everyone can be a resource in some capacity. Join local groups online, reach out to neighbors, attend community meetings, and have discussions. If these local meetings or groups don’t exist, create them, and foster collaboration! If everyone works together, everyone can get through the emergency together.

Information courtesy of Dr. Shawn Rowland, a board-certified family physician with experience in Mexico and the US, founded Jase Medical after witnessing challenges in accessing medication during disasters and supply chain issues. Driven by this and his work as a primary care physician during the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Rowland oversees all aspects of Jase Medical, ensuring patient care, safety, education, and operations.