Category: Let's talk
Help! I've just discovered that I'm totally unprepared for any kind of an emergency event. No I mean any kind, should a tornado choose to merrily bounce across Illinois and desecrate our street in the process I wouldn't know what to do. Should a global flu pandemic decide that, "hey, that looks like an inviting street to march down," I'd be swallowed up. I'm prepared for exactly nothing! Tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, I'm just a sitting duck. Though I suppose in the event of a flood being a duck wouldn't be such a bad thing but you catch my drift here. I'm not ready.
How do I know this you might ask. Well, owing to a little website that I came across this morning that has a handy little tool for measuring my "readiness quotient" is how. It scores on a simple scale of zero to ten, 10 being nothing's gonna catch you with your pants round your ankles, zero being you may as well just go and lay down in front of an eighteen wheeler now and get it over with.
By now you'll not be all together surprised to hear that I took this test, and scored a big fat zero. The national average score is 4.41. The good news in all of this is that the page that gives you your final score is gently reassuring. Or at least the first few words are. In effect it tells you not to worry, that there are steps you can take in order to get ready for the coming cataclysm, whatever form it might take. (Phew, so all hope is not lost then right?) Wrong, because what the gently reassuring tone fails to impart to you is that the number of steps is considerable. Enough in fact that you could not only build a staircase that could reach the top of the Eiffel Tower, but that you could go so far beyond the top of the thing that you'd probably need an oxygen tank with you just to survive the atmosphere!
Here is just a random smattering of steps I should take:
"Be Aware of your Local Government's Emergency or Disaster Plan". They have one then? Of course they do, nice local government.
"Know How to Find the Emergency Broadcast Channel on the Radio". I'm already in paroxysms over this particular nugget of arse-saving information you see, I don't even know where the radio is! It's possibly beneath our bed but then, what isn't beneath our bed? I mean come on, we can't be the only people like this, everything gets shoved beneath the bed, old pillows, cardboard boxes with god knows what inside, back scratchers, lost socks, I mean they have to go somewhere once they've run from the drier right? The point is that even if the radio is under the bed, I've got to get to the damn thing before I can use it. So now in the event of an emergency I'm going to have to install some kind of heavy lifting equipment in the bedroom just to get to the radio beneath the bed that may or may not actually be there, and even if it is, I don't know the emergency channel so just getting to it will hardly be of much help anyway!
"Create a family Communications Plan". I'm actually going to just skip this step as it happens, there's only me and the better half in the house after all so creating a communication plan is easy. We'll shout. Unless of course it is a quiet disaster, then we'll just talk instead. There, job done.
"Create a disaster kit and a go kit". Actually we've got the go kit part covered. Well, by not having it covered. The wife and I are both blind so don't have a car or any other means of transportation ergo, nothing to leave a go kit inside. Unless the cross-section of top experts that put this thing together suggest that we have a 3-seater tandem bike ready for action at all times. Even then we'd need a sighted rider for the thing and we can hardly ask anybody to sit in the garage on the front seat of a tandem indefinitely in the event of an emergency. Though I suppose if we did do that, they could hold the go kit for us too. May as well, hardly like they'd have anything better to do while they waited for disaster to rain down upon us.
The disaster kit looks reasonably simple, they instruct you to think about the things you'd need, they even go so far as to give you a short list, drinking water, food, clean air and warmth. Wait, clean air? Why did I know this was going to get more complicated than it first seemed? Three days worth of drinking water is recommended so one assumes then that you should be prepared to be out of circulation for three days, so my question is, how do you pack three days worth of clean air? I mean a box can only hold so much air, clean or otherwise. I doubt whole rooms hold three days air. I mean this is just a box containing basic essentials, water, food, a first aid kit, it isn't doctor Who's tardis, (that's bigger on the inside than out for those who don't get the reference). Surely three days worth of clean air is an unreasonable expectation isn't it? The experts apparently don't think so.
And that's just a smattering of the things I need to learn. I haven't covered learning basic first aid, something which, incidentally, I did learn back in 2001 however I don't qualify as being trained according to the readiness quotient test because my training didn't happen within the last five years, or setting up a meeting place in case of separation, or actually practicing the things we need to do if something terrible happens, or! Or! Or!
So you see I'm not prepared. Then again, who is? The readiness quotient website claims that on average people are 4.41% ready, though I doubt the validity of this number, but even if it is true that still means that America as a nation is more likely to be caught unprepared than not. Still, as few if any people are completely prepared it does mean that you're not as big a dunce as you probably feel, and surely that's a thought to make you sleep more soundly at night...
Then again perhaps you'd like to base a nights sound sleep on real knowledge instead of just not being as inferior as you first thought in which case go to the link provided at the bottom of this note and find out for yourself just how prepared you are for an emergency. A word of advice though, don't do it if you suffer from heart problems, your lack of emergency preparedness might just throw up an emergency that you're not prepared for...
The Readiness Quotient test.
Dan.
This topic came at the right time:
Yesterday I heard an odd siren. It was a warning code I was not familear with...so I went on the net and got a short list. The first one was a nuclear blast...well I wasn't melting to the wall so that wasn't it. Finally, it said the best thing to do is listen to the media. It turns out it was the flood warning sound.
It's funny how ill prepared we all are and all I can say is, good thing I wasn't the one under water.
I always find the levels which some people go to to prepare for an "emergency" quite bizarre.
On the one hand, I can see how you might take some precautions if you live on a faultline which means there is the possibility of earthquakes, or if you live in an area that is routinely struck by hurricanes of varying force between the months of May and November. HHaving spare drinking water/tinned food etc would surely then be regarded as a sensible precaution, and in those instances there's probably more than a reasonable chance your "action plan" will need to be used at some point.
But it's the random, probably-never-likely-to-happen events that really baffle me.
when we had the threat of swine flu, there was talk of people having to get together two weeks worth of food, "in case there are no deliveries and the shops are closed. And people did go out and panic buy for just such an eventuality. And surprise surprise the swine flu came, and went, and the country wasn't crippled under its effects.
Equally earlier this year we had the threat of signifficant snowfall. And within hours shops were running out of bread and milk as people piled their trolleys high with as many loaves as they could carry. How on earth do they manage in countries where signifficant snow covers the ground for several months of the year?
I think I'm with you on the 0 preparedness scale. but having said that, when I did try to buy some candles just in case we had a power cut in the predicted snow (I don't need them, but other members of my family would appreciate some light), I was told by my local shop that they don't sell them. So how on earth am I supposed to panic if the shops won't support me? grin.
I see your point but we do need to be aware of certain procedures.
I totally agree that we need to be aware, and prepared, but I feel there is a fine line between taking necessary precautions and just obsessing over it. No offense to the original poster. I'm not saying you do that at all, but to live complete risk free would basically involve not living at all. Just my thoughts. Having said that, I definitely think this topic is a good idea, something I will admit I haven't spent much time thinking about.
you definitely need to prepare for emergency one way of another. for those who living in such area that natural emergency might happen, the best is to have an escape plan. and know exactly what to, and not to take with you. however, doesn't mean that you needing to worry about it, or waiting for any emergency to happen day by day, night by night. yes, some might suggest that the statistic for it to happen is basicly very low, but, will it worth to take the risk? the answer is no.
Dan, not too sure about the states, but i know some country, or particular states/area within the country usually have some sort of emergency plan to escape, etc etc. i know areas in Australia have their own, and they are good and simple enough for anyone to follow. maybe you try to check with your state or local official website, they should have one, if, you in an area where (ttouch wood) natural emergency stuff like that could happen.
I agree with Ocean Dream.