Transcription:
Disaster Preparedness for Home and Work

Melanie Cole: We cannot stress enough the importance of preparing ourselves for disasters. Emergencies can happen anywhere at home or at work and everyone must learn to take action to prepare for these emergencies in case something unexpected happens. My guest today is Chad Cossey. He's a disaster response coordinator for Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. Welcome to the show. Why is it so important that we are prepared for a disaster?

Chad Cossey: Why is it so important to be prepared for disasters? The best way I can answer this is called learning. When you learn, it's a change in behavior. Another way to talk about it would be having a set of solutions to a problem. When you prepare, it allows you to practice those solutions, it allows you to ingrain those solutions and it allows you to get that muscle memory that's needed. When you're presented with a challenge such as what a disaster or an incident that's local to an area would present you, you have solutions and that you're not having to learn it on the fly, you don’t have to make unsafe decisions and it allows you to essentially get everybody out, get everybody to safety and do that with a more controlled articulated manner.

Melanie: What a great answer. Absolutely great answer and really reiterates the importance of preparing ourselves. What is the first step? What do we do to start planning that emergency preparedness?

Chad: You have to know what to plan for. You have to take a look at your community, you have to find out what disasters or what natural incidents or what things you have going on in your community. Some of the things that I have prepared is, not myself, but have gotten some tools to share is called "my hazards." The state of California at least has myhazards.caloes.ca.gov and you can put your zip code in and you can find out what your area has, what things are going to affect it. That way, you're not preparing for a flood if you're not in a flood-prone area. The first step is to find out what's going to affect you. The second step is to find out what your haves are. What do you already have at your disposal? You may already have some food in the cabinet, you may already have some knowledge, you may already have some things. The next step would be to find out what your needs are. We have enough food to get us through a day but we are planning on going without support for three days, so we might need to get two days more worth of food, and that’s the biggest thing. You don’t want to duplicate efforts and you don’t want to plan for something that’s not there. I don’t want to go back on my shelf, but in my area, we have the Santa Ana winds and some of those gusts can come up and be up over 70-80 MPH within a matter of seconds, so we have taken a look at tornado plans not because Santa Ana provides a tornado, but a high wind event, and that allows us to take things that have been practiced. Even though it might not hit your area if there are some commonalities, you can use those particular incidents to help you with some solutions and to help you plan for those events.

Melanie: Let's start planning for an event where maybe you do need three days’ worth of food or you're stuck in your home. What do you want to make sure that you’ve got around that you can get to? What do you really need in a disaster kit? Like the Red Cross, has kits, here's what you need, but as you said, it’s based on where you're going to be and what disaster you might be facing, whether you have to evacuate or stay in the home. Speak about how those are different and what we might need.

Chad: As far as what you might need or how those differ, in the event of a flood, you would be evacuating right away, especially if the flood water is coming up. You would want to be able to take things that are quick, things that don’t take time to move, you're obviously not going to move the furniture out of the house because the water might be coming up on you fast. You want to have it be portable, you want to have it be able to be carried by most people in the household and be able to load it in a car. As far as individual items within a kit, you're going to see variation in the markets because there are variations in how we all live, what we all like and what we all think we can and can't live without. Look at your dietary needs, I call them patients at least in the healthcare world, but some victims may be type 2 diabetic where your food choices are going to be driven mostly by what that person can or cannot have due to diabetes. I tell people on a normal day to write down how much food they consumed, how much gas they used, how many changes of clothes they went through in a day and then multiply that out by three. That gives them somewhat of a normal feel to it. You're not making these changes. You're not going from regular clothing to military base garb because you're trying to be a survivor. You have what you need, you have what you're comfortable in, and you have those pieces already there for you. The kit itself, a first aid kit, you don't have to come up to a medical doctor level to do anything, take a first aid class; those are going to be the best things. Make sure to have a radio in there, hopefully, battery powered, if not solar or even the hand crank radio so that you can receive updates. Some of those updates may be about the location of shelters or what hospitals are still open. In my experience with responding to disasters, yes there are people who are severely hurt and need to go to a facility, and then there are those who a first aid kit would be completely suitable for. The best data would be what three days of your life is in order for you to be able to capture that and then get the supplies for it.

Melanie: That’s great advice. If we do have to evacuate, you said for floods you might have to evacuate faster, but how much time should you reasonably expect to be able to pack your stuff? Should we be keeping all of these things in an airtight container just ready to grab, but then you start thinking about your pictures or your jewelry or medications or any of those kinds of things? How much reasonable time should you plan on if you're going to even try and have one of those practice sessions where you all practice getting everything ready to go and run out of the house?

Chad: I think a good indicator is a couple of hours, two to three hours. It depends on the incident, it depends on what's going on, how things are unfolding. In a wildfire, which we get a lot of here in southern California, some of those wildfires the wind can pick up, if the first changes direction, before you know it, somebody’s home is completed consumed. A couple hours should be something that as far as how long should it take you to move stuff from the house to get out is a good indicator. I say that although a hurricane comes in, you get your warnings and everything and alerts and the risk communications that comes after that. In that event, you have days that you could move stuff out, but if you are in an area like here with earthquakes, once the shaking stops, get your stuff out especially if the house is heavily damaged, a couple hours’ worth of stuff to be moved, get it in the car and go either seek a shelter. Those will themselves take a while to be up and running. Seek shelter or even get a family member who is close enough that it’s easy to drive to but not so far away that it ends up being a detriment. See a family member and stay with them.

Melanie: I often have thought myself about what I would do and I've gone through the plan in my head, if you're somebody that has two cars and you think the wildfires might be coming to your house, pack your stuff in both cars, maybe both parents, one in each car and take both and go, or do you all want to stick together?

Chad: It’s a good contingency, but with the things that can happen unfortunately in ’94, southern California had an earthquake and we had a freeway that collapsed and nobody knew that the freeway has collapsed, and so we had motorists that were driving on the freeway and some of them were falling to their death because that road was no longer a passable road. If you have two cars, it’s twice the concern. One car may break down, one car may run out of gas and because you have two cars, you might start loading up those things that you call valuable, your pictures and jewelry, and I'm not saying not to do it. This is valuable and then you move to the next thing and before you know it, you have the whole house tied to the top of your car. One car is a little bit better, it’s a little bit easier to control, it depends on how many people you're trying to move, if just one car won't cut it, then two cars will have to be it. I myself would just take one car, load what we can for everybody and get to the nearest shelter or a family member who’s far enough away that they're not going through the incident.

Melanie: That makes really good sense. As far as some of those kits that you can buy on the market today at Red Cross, do you recommend buying those or do you think it’s more cost effective to gather all that stuff on your own? What do you say to people that say they want to make a kit and they're already pre-done there?

Chad: On my end, it's 50/50. If the kit has everything you feel you need, then, by all means, take a premade kit. I think the biggest thing is everyone wants to know exactly what they need and the issue is the person whether it be Red Cross or somebody else who was able to get things at a cost and then make kits and sell them out, they don't know your lifestyle, they don't know everything you need. What they do know is that after looking at a few disasters and hearing a few stories, these 5 or 10 or 15 basic things should be able to cover you. Those premade kits are a great start, but I would go through them again and see what's necessary for you. Most of those kits won't come in with medications. My experience in 2007 with the southern California fires is people are being evacuated so quick that they forgot their medications and a premade kit isn't going to have that. If you are taking medications to maintain or control something, you might want to look in having a second set of those, work with your physician, work with your pharmacist to see you want to put this kit together and have spare medications. The kit may not have certain foods for those who are diabetic. You got to take a look at that and see how much of that kit can handle it. A lot of these kits with certain foods that are considered nonperishable or disaster foods, a lot of those are preserved in sodium, so if you suffer from high blood pressure problems, you're putting yourself at risk because you're eating survival foods and it’s being persevered with salt. Something with some water, I wouldn’t say anything with food because that food may not be something that you can consume, it may be for somebody else who doesn't have blood pressure issues, something with some first aid supplies, something with a radio, a couple walkie-talkies, if you get split up, you have a way to communicate with each other, although the store-bought walkie-talkies everyone will be one, so you're going to hear a few other people that are communicating. If you buy a kit, just know that grassroots piece that the rest of it has got to be gear towards your family and what their needs are.

Melanie: Really great advice. Wrap it up for us with your best information what you want listeners to know and take away from this segment about whether they're at work or at home for planning where they live for the disasters that might happen where they live and what you want them to know about starting to make that plan.

Chad: Find out what your hazards are, get the supplies what we called “space, staff and stuff” or supplies needed in order for you to handle those three to four days, make sure that the supplies are geared towards what the hazards are in your area. FEMA has a floodsmart.gov website that you can go on and type your address in and find out if your home is in a flood plain so you can begin to understand those hazards. The National Institute of Health has what they call a tox map that will let you know about certain chemicals that are in your area that you don’t have to plan for a natural hazard, but you’ve got a chemical manufacturing plant that could release at any time. Find out those hazards, built your kit according to your family’s needs. I know it’s not fun to sit there and monitor what everybody does for three days, but you're never going to really know what you need until you do so, how much food is consumed. We have a general practice of one gallon a day per person and for some people that'll be perfect, but realize that’s for consumption. If you’ve taken into consideration hygiene, if you take into consideration that some of these non-perishable food items take water to cook and rehydrate, then all of a sudden one gallon a day becomes not enough. You start looking for three to four gallons a day and in certain instances where the water source may be contaminated due to that flood or fire or chemical release, water is going to be something that is scarce. Find out beforehand if you're able to, find out the location of the shelters in your area, Red Cross shelters mostly, they’re the largest manager of that process and the most utilized by most of the cities and counties in the nation, find out where they are. What I prefer is to find a family member that you can tolerate for a length of time and look into staying with them. Once you have that said and done, practice it. It gives the kids in the house a solution, it gives everybody else a solution, it makes it second nature on a yearly basis, you may have to call out to a couple of friends or businesses that you listed in the plan in order to see if that is still the number that you can use to get a hold of them and make sure that it’s up to date.

Melanie: Absolutely great information. So important for listeners to here and make that plan and heed what you have said. Listeners, share this show with your friends because it is such important information. Thank you again for sharing your incredible expertise in making that plan preparing for a disaster. You're listening to It’s Your Health Radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. For more information, please visit henrymayo.com. That’s henrymayo.com. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.