Melanie Cole, MS (Host): California has earthquakes, wildfires, floods, high winds, almost any disaster you can possibly think of. And we are here today to discuss what steps you should take to make sure you and your family are prepared in case of any of these possible disasters. Welcome to It's Your Health Radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital.

I'm Melanie Cole. Joining me today is Benjamin Morgan. He's the Assistant Chief Nursing Officer at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. He's here to tell us about disaster preparedness, what you need to know. Ben, thank you so much for joining us today. So you live in an area that's really susceptible, as I said, to all kinds of disasters, whether weather related or environmental.

I would like you to start by some basic preparedness. If you were to think of the most basic top five things or so that you tell people all the time, Hey, you know what? You need to make sure to have this, this, do this. What do you tell them?

Benjamin Morgan, RN: Well, thank you very much Melanie, and thank you for having me on the show. It's a pleasure to be here. Um, this is something that I am super passionate about as a topic, and I think it is never too soon or too late for everybody to consider how can they be best prepared for the unexpected? And really I think that's the best place to start.

We never really know what could happen. And we really don't want to be caught unawares where stuff does happen that can impact us or our family. And sometimes we do know in the area that we live, we're more susceptible to wildfires or floods or earthquakes, those kind of things. But the basic principles really remain the same.

So the first thing to do, the most important thing to do is to sit down with your family or on your own or with loved ones or friends, and actually just start to have a conversation and talk through and think about what would you do in basic situations? The age old adage of, if we fail to plan, we plan to fail, really is very relevant here. So the first and most important step is to sit with your family or loved ones and start to talk about what are the things in your area that might be a problem that you can anticipate.

And then really, if you look at the basic principles of emergency preparation, it is first of all to plan to understand how you could make yourself safe and deal with a difficult situation. Be safe during an event that's actually going on. Survive that and then figure out how to recover and be safe in the period afterwards.

So if we were to consider, for example, a situation that happened to me and my wife a few years ago, we used to live up in Crestline in San Bernardino. And for those of you in the area that may remember, we had Snowmageddon. So unfortunately being passionate about this situation, I'm a bit of a prepper.

We lived up on the mountains. And we did the very simple exercise before any of these things happened of planning. Okay? If I'm at a hospital down in the valley and you are up here on the mountain, what will we do if something happens and there's an emergency and we have to navigate through that together?

Well, first of all, how will we get in touch with each other? Really, really basic. Will we use cell phones? What are the contact numbers of the places that we work and the places you are likely to be? If we can't communicate with each other, where would we meet and what would be the backup plan? Where would we meet if we needed a backup plan?

And then very simply, what would we need? So, really it usually comes down to do you have the food that you would need? Do you have the clothing that you would need? Do you have the emergency medications that you would need? Do you have a way of communicating in an emergency? And if you've thought through those things, most of the time, most of the incidents you might face, you're likely to be much better prepared with a plan than you would if you were not.

Does that begin to answer your question, Melanie? I don't want to go too far down the path without us giving you a chance to ask for detail.

Host: No, no, that was perfect. I mean, communication certainly being top of the list. And when you planned this with your wife, I mean, you guys set a place to meet and if it was like roads were closed and stuff, and I'm kind of invested now. I want to know what you guys came up with as far as some of that. What, what would you decide to do if the roads were closed?

Benjamin Morgan, RN: So, both of us are healthcare workers, so it's really easy to know where we are likely to be. I'm either going to be at the hospital or at home. My wife's going to be at the hospital or home. And near where we were, there was a really recognizable landmark. It was a small fire station. That was just close to the house.

So if for some reason she had to leave the house, had to go somewhere, was being moved, the rally point, if you will, we decided on would be we're going to meet at the little fire station. So, it was really easily recognizable. It was somewhere that was likely to be attended by emergency personnel if there was an issue that was going on at the time.

And that was a really easy way for us to make sure if we couldn't get in touch with each other. And we couldn't figure out what was going on, we would try and meet up there. And then we had the backup plan. So if you are able to get from the house and you were trying to drive to find me and you couldn't find me at the fire station, then you'd go to the hospital where I worked.

So we had plan A and we had plan B, and obviously we would try and call each other and talk, but just in case we couldn't use the communication strategies that we had, that was our emergency meetup plan.

Host: Wow, that's awesome. Now I miss the days of CB Radio. Because those would, those would've worked. We could have just taken them with us. Right. So, it seems like earthquake recommendations, Ben, have changed over the years. It used to be a doorway or like a bathroom. What is it now? What do you recommend if an earthquake hits, where do you go? What do you do?

Benjamin Morgan, RN: Okay, so, I don't want to leave. Make sure you've had a think about a plan, right? So if the earthquake hits in the middle of the night, where's your emergency bag with your clothing and your footwear and something that's a light that you can use if it's dark, where's your emergency food? Where's your emergency medications, right?

So if we're talking about an earthquake, that could happen at any time; knowing where your stuff is and what your plan is, is super, super important. The next point is shelter in place. Okay? We have a lot of people that get injured when they try and run out of the house, and then they are exposed to broken glass and those kind of things.

So if you're in a building, under a doorway or something that's a solid structure, under a bridge table or something along those lines that you can shelter under if you really, really need to. If you're already outside, then move away from buildings, move into an open space away from stuff that could fall down and hurt you.

I think you raise a really, really good point though, Melanie, which is the guidance keeps changing. And there are lots of different stories and different people telling you different things, and I would love to take this time to sort of point out a couple of resources that people can actually use. So there is a fantastic resource online called www.ready.gov.

And if you go to that, FEMA has prepared multiple guides for the common situations that many people would face, and they really adopt a very simplistic way of thinking about emergency preparedness. So they'll start with, prepare now before you end up in the event, right? And then whatever the situation is, fire, flood, earthquake, storm, heat wave, cyber attack, whatever you can think of; they've been very good at putting together guides that categorize actions you can take into those three sections. Prepare now. Make sure that you can survive during the event and then make sure you can be safe afterwards.

So if you're ever in a situation where you're not sure what's the most current guidance on a certain topic, whether that is thunderstorms or even the CDC did do a guide on zombie apocalypse once as a fun exercise to get people ready for emergencies.

But if you're not sure of what the current guidance is for a situation that you face and you're looking for some resources, if you go to www.ready.gov, and then you will be able to find their preparedness sheets that are prepared by FEMA. It's really good to get the most up-to-date guidance of what you would do.

Host: I'm really glad that you offered up that information because it is a great place to find out really what to do. Now, one of the scariest things that anybody, myself, anybody can think of is a fire of. We've seen California wildfires. If someone is told that the fires are going and they have to evacuate, what do you tell them to take with? Now I have planned my own evacuation plan, and I've thought to myself, I've gone around my house and if I had 20 minutes, what would I grab what do you say to people? What should they take with them?

Benjamin Morgan, RN: Well, I think, and I, I'm going to keep harping on this point, Melanie, is if you can plan for it, even 15 or 20 minutes of thinking that through now, before you're in that situation, is really, really going to help. And I think the most important thing to consider if we're talking about during the point when someone is saying, you've gotta evacuate; you've really got to listen to what the emergency professionals are telling you to do, and as tempting as it might be to stay longer or do the things that you think you can do to try and save your property or those kind of things, it really is important to listen to the guidance from emergency services, firefighters, to make sure that they can do the best that they can to support you, in being as safe as possible during those situations.

I think if we plan through what's going on, we need to think through what are the things that we need as an individual or as a family to survive for the next little while. So again, making sure that we've got clothing, making sure that we've got emergency medications, making sure that we've got food and water and communication and being prepared for that can help with that.

So it's not a last minute panic run around, with a backpack. Trying to throw things together, being prepared is really going to help. But those are the priorities. Property is at the end of the day property and can be replaced most of the time. And even if things can't be replaced, it's a far cry losing a family photo album to losing a loved one themselves. So obviously people come first. Making sure that you have the items that are going to help you stay safe is super important. But past that, if we plan for it, things that you can't replace. So it's really important to keep your important documents, your family photo albums that you've had for years that are going to be very difficult to replace.

Keep them in a place that's either in a fire safe box so you don't have to worry about it if you have to evacuate or keep them in a place where you can pull them together very quickly and you can go. The one thing that you don't want to be doing is fire is coming over the mountain, your house is being threatened, the firefighters are asking you to evacuate the area, and suddenly you're trying to remember, what should I take and what should I not take?

So people first make sure that the people are safe now and they're going to be safe for the next few days that are with you. And then you can look at bringing items that are going to be of, uh, good importance to you.

Host: That's really great advice. You don't want to be running around at the last minute and having that plan, having that thought and things like photo albums, putting them in a fire safe box is a great idea. Now what about technology? Ben, there's so much out there. Is there any technology that you would recommend on phones or other kinds that you recommend that we have that would either warn us about these things, let us know.

I mean, should we be keeping those radios, those little crank up radios? You know, what should we be having?

Benjamin Morgan, RN: Okay. That's a great question and uh, I've gotta be careful not to go in too many places at the same time. Because this is super exciting for me. So let's tackle the technology one first. So I live in Southern California and wildfires are a real issue for us. Flash floods are a real issue for us.

Earthquakes are a real issue for us, and we get terrible storms in the wintertime, and we can get heat waves in the summertime. So one app that I and my family use is the fema.gov app. You can find it on the app store, you can download it. And that once you plug in your zip code, will actually give you alerts specific to your area about significant events, whether that is weather, whether that is an earthquake.

And it's also super useful because it's another way to access, those guides I was talking about on ready.gov. Those are available through that FEMA app as well. And also it has information about local shelters. If they are standing up an emergency response in your area, how to communicate with people, all that information comes through their app.

So that is a very useful app to actually have. The other app that myself and my family use especially living in the area with California wildfires is the watch duty app. That allows you to see maps of areas near you. You can see where the fire is, what's active, what's being fought.

You can see alerts to new fires that start, and it really helps you keep abreast of what's going on with wildfires in our area. Okay, so if we put a, a line under that piece for the apps, what do I keep in my emergency go kit from that perspective. You'd actually mentioned CB radios and I would encourage people to get involved with their communities.

Wherever you are, there will be people who are involved in local education and local emergency preparedness, and it is possible to become a CB radio operator in conjunction with the local services. You can learn how to do that. Having a CB radio at home, portable radios that you can use, do give you access to those emergency channels. It is something that is still very doable for most people. There's communities available in your area. You can learn to be a CB operator, a community ham radio operator, is what they call it. And then you can actually be part of that communication piece.

So that's super important. So I have those. Having a clockwork radio or a clockwork flashlight, so that even if you don't have batteries and you're trying to listen into what's going on, you are able to have something like that that keeps you in touch with what's happening. Having some kind of recharged battery packs ready to go with charging cables for your phones.

We all use our phones all the time and we mentioned some of the apps that can actually help. Those things I find super useful, so we keep those in our emergency bag. We mentioned the emergency medications and the emergency clothing. Some emergency food, even if it's just snacks, like granola bars. Just having something in case you find yourself away and you just need to have some water and some snacks is super, super helpful.

We mentioned the emergency medications. And then the other thing is glow sticks. Long gone are the days where I've gone to discos and used glow sticks in my past, but having the Lummi glow sticks that you can buy, they're super cheap. You can get them on Amazon. If you're in a situation where you don't want to waste your flashlight batteries, or you just want to put a source of light in a restroom or something when the power's out. Those kind of things. Those glow sticks are super, super useful to have in your emergency kit, just in case you find yourself in a situation where you need light for a long period of time.

Host: What a great idea. That is something I would not have even thought about. So that is an excellent idea. And Ben, and this is my last question for you, but you've given us so much information, what does Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital do to prepare for these disasters? Because, you know, we've all seen on TV, stuff happening in the hospitals and it's crazy in the ER and all of that, but hospitals are kind of the center point besides like the fire stations, the hospitals are where people will tend to gravitate.

There's people there on machinery and what does Henry Mayo do to protect the community and the hospital itself? What do you do to prepare?

Benjamin Morgan, RN: So Melanie, I'm, I'm super glad you asked about that. As you might have guessed, this is something that's a passion of mine, as well as being the associate chief nursing officer here and being responsible for the emergency department, our trauma department. I'm also our designated emergency manager here at Henry Mayo.

So, you may or may not know, and our community may or may not know, Henry Mayo is not just a hospital on its own. We are actually host to one of many of the county's disaster resource centers. So we actually have caches of equipment, medication and supplies here at Henry Mayo that are specifically designed, not just for us, but also for an umbrella of other hospitals that we provide service for.

And we take that program very seriously. So everything has to be checked, everything has to be maintained to make sure that we can be part of the community's emergency response and support other hospitals if we need to. Past that, hospitals use something called the Hospital Incident Command System, the HICS System, which is nationally recognized and part of the FEMA response structure.

And essentially that enables us to adopt an all hazards planning approach. So we know we may get an earthquake, we will see wildfires, we may see a flood. But anything could happen. We could have a train derail at Newhall. We could have any number of different events impact us. And the key for us is to make sure that we always have one person at all times who is responsible for making sure the hospital is functioning okay.

And at any time that person can activate a leadership response where a group of us get together really, really quickly, evaluate what's going on, and then we can activate everything from extra engineering departments through to extra staff from the emergency department through to, opening up communication networks with other hospitals in case there has been some big event and people are trying to find each other.

We take this very seriously. We practice and drill on this on a regular basis. We have fantastic communications with fire and police resources and the sheriff's department. We have good networks with the water company and supply companies, and we keep five days worth of food and water on site here enough to feed all our staff and all our patients and a whole bunch of people should they turn up at our door.

We were just involved in one of the great shakeout practice drills, probably about six weeks ago, where we mobilized our entire structure, got everybody organized, pretended we had a hundred people coming through the emergency department at the same time. And it's really good that we do that to make sure that we're on our game.

So, we take that very seriously. We are part of not just our response for this community, but the broader area as part of the LA County response. And we, we are super excited about helping people understand how we get ready for those kind of emergencies.

Host: Wow, you just really gave me chills. Those drills are so important. I think it instills confidence and it should instill confidence in the community to know that you, the experts at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital are there to help if anybody needs help. I'd like you to offer your best advice here as your final thought.

Tell the community what you want them to know about what you're doing there at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital and for the community, what they need to know about disaster preparedness, because these kinds of things can and do happen, and you know, the God forbids are what we don't want to happen. So we all need to be prepared.

Benjamin Morgan, RN: For sure. I appreciate that question, Melanie. So, I think one of the most important things for us is, we are the hospital that serves this community. There aren't any other hospitals here. We are the only hospital immediate to many people in this local area, and we really want to partner with everybody to make sure that if something like this happens, we are as prepared as we can be.

And we've navigated some difficult stuff together historically. There's been gun fight incidents, there's been fires, there's been earthquakes that have impacted this community, and Henry Mayo has been here partnering with them along the way. So just as we talk about planning for in an all hazards approach.

Anything that could hit us. You know, it's a pretty set piece for us to talk about a fire and what we would do and the apps we would use, but we try and prepare for the any eventuality. So there are many different events that could lead to people needing to shelter in their home for a little while.

There are many events that could lead to people needing to take shelter in a place that is not their home for a little while, and I want to encourage everybody in the community to think that through. We keep going on about the planning piece, Melanie, you know, won't let it go because it's so, so important.

So think through the common things that you think could impact you. A fire, a flood, evacuating, an earthquake, power goes out, cold weather, hot weather. Think about those things. Go and look at the resources that we've talked about today. Go and look at theready.gov website and look at those things and sit with your family.

And even if it's only a quick 15 minute conversation, and then a handwritten note that you put on a magnet on your fridge saying, if this happens, my medications are here. My really valuable things are here. I've got my go bag and I know what we'll do if an event happens like this. And then we can partner really effectively when you need us, we are here for you.

Um, but if you need to, you can be self-sufficient for a little while and be safe in your home or wherever you are asked to be as you're in a disaster should it occur.

Host: Wow. That was great information Ben. What a great educator you are and such a nice man, and I certainly can hear the passion and see your compassion come through for this topic and, and helping people. You're just lovely. I thank you so much for joining us today and really telling us everything we need to know to get ourselves prepared and to make that plan, because that's what's so important to get started right at the beginning and have that talk with your family.

Thank you again, Ben, so much for joining us today. And you can learn more about disaster preparedness by going to the Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital online health library@library.henrymayo.com, and clicking on disaster preparedness in the Explore topics pull down menu on the right side of the homepage.

That concludes this episode of It's Your Health Radio with Henry May Newhall Hospital. Please always remember to subscribe, rate, and review It's Your Health Radio on Apple Podcast, Spotify, iHeart and Pandora. I'm Melanie Cole. Thank you so much for joining us today.