Emergency Preparedness
On December 14, 2012, a whole world
was destroyed by an act of one mentally disturbed young man, this was not the
first incident like this that has plagued our world and it will not the last
time. The Sandy Hook Elementary School victims, and survivors did not expect to
go to work or school and fight for their lives, but with the quick thinking
reaction of the teachers and students less lives were lost that day. We all
know we should not live our lives in fear of the unknown, but we can be preparing
if something does happen. About a decade ago when I was working as a school age
teacher at one of the sister center, of the current center that I'm an
Assistant Director, Maryland, Washington DC and Northern Virginia had two men
(aka the DC Sniper) who would drive up and down the I-95 corridor just randomly
it seemed at the time shooting people at school, at the mall, at the gas
station, and practically everywhere. I remember being scared to leave my house
to drive to work since I lived and worked off the I-95 corridor, but I knew I
had to be there to protect the children in my care. My center was put on lock
down and you had to stay away from all windows and doors, this was hard to do
because the center was pretty much windows and doors. We had the parent call the center, right
before they would come so we could have a person at the door to let them in and
then re-lock the door. These are two
types of human generated disasters that could cause harm that we should be prepared
for.
How do we prepare for a potential
human generated disaster like the two mentioned above and the others that we
are all familiar with? Many of these we have no warning signs like we do in
weather or natural related disasters, so we must prepare as if we don't know it’s
going to happen, much like we do for home fires. What should we do as parents and care givers?
First, work with your local law enforcement to maybe get a call about possible
crimes that are happening in your area. Directly behind and off to the left of
my child care facility are banks, my center has it set up that is the police
notify us with the possible robbery taken place near a bank in our area, so we
can go on lock down. This mean we lock all our doors and go to the interior of
our building where there is no windows, until we hear back from the law
enforcement that the coast is clear. If
we did not have this set up, we would never know and could potentially harm a
staff member or child. As we know this
type of disaster is unpredictable and can pop up with little to no warning so
it is best to prepare every one the best way you can. Like with a house or
building fire, and having a safe place to meet once everyone is outside, you
should do the same and set up a safe place for everyone to go inside the
building or house, or depending on the situation at a neighbors or other safe
hidden place.
With the upcoming winter month, it is
always a great idea to prepare everyone, the house, and/or child care facility
for the extreme cold to prevent pipes from freezing, carbon monoxide poisoning
(from fire places and cars started in a garage or tail pipes covered by a ton
of snow or ovens turned on to heat the house), and power outages due to snow
and ice. How do you prepare for the winter storms, before, during, and after?
A few years ago Maryland was hit with
a nasty winter, the weathermen were predicting 2 to 4 inches of snow and ice to
layer the ground, well like always they got it wrong and we were hit with 6 to
8+ inches of snow around the evening rush hour. It was a mess, cars and people
were stranded on the side of the road, and many were in car accidents trying to
make it home to their families. Many places closed early to get people home
safe but the storm hit fast, and dropped a ton of snow. My child care center
stayed open, but my director and I sent our staff home and we stayed with the
children who were left. Later that evening, the Governor called a state of
emergency mandating everyone stay off the roads, so we started to prepare
dinner for the children who were left, and comforting them that their parent
are coming to get them but traffic was bad, and
that they will be staying with us
until their parents could make it to get them. This was a fluke storm and we
had to do our best to prepare the children and center for the extreme weather.
How did we prepare the center for the cold
temperatures, we turned on the water to a trickle to keep the pipes from
freezing. We made sure that in case of a power outage we had enough blankets to
keep everyone warm and flashlights for light. How can you prepare your home and
families just like we prepared our center that night and any night they our
calling for winter weather and extreme cold temps, is to make sure you have
enough food, and supplies in the house to possible hold you and your family for
at least a week. Also run the water through the pipes, turn off all outside
water, and drain the pipes. Make sure that you have candles, flashlights, your
cell phones are charged, and blankets on hand in case of a power outage. That's
how you can prepare your house or other building for an upcoming winter storm,
or extreme cold temperatures.
We practice these emergency drills
once a month like we do fire drills. Maryland State law only requires child
care providers and schools to do disaster drills twice a year, but fire drills
every month. My company over rides the COMAR regulations and says we should
prepare the children each moth like we do for fire. We use different sounds to
determine which drill we are doing, the fire drill is of course the fire alarm
of the building, and for any disaster drill we use an air horn and shout out
the disaster so they know where to go.
Besides preparing the children,
Maryland COMAR Regulations states that the center at all times must have an
emergency preparedness certified staff member in the building. At my center we
have six out of fourteen staff members are certified, and at all times there is
at least two of us in the center. In the class we all took together we had to
develop a plan of who would be in charge in the event of a disaster, where to
go inside and outside of the building, who would be in charge of getting the
emergency cards and making sure we have a phone, media, or social media account
to alert the families, and who would maintain and grab the emergency supplies,
emergency radio, batteries, flashlights, water, first aid kit, snacks, and
blankets. We also had to plan where if evacuated we would go, we have it set up
with the local school, to house a few staff members and our younger children
that we cannot transport with our buses, and the local grocery, or surrounding
businesses to hold the rest of us. It is always good to have a backup plan and
inform the parents of any changes. In our class we also learned that we should
set up a phone tree where the center may call a few parents and those parents
call more and so on until all parents are reached. But with this you are not
sure that all the parents will be reached and you have to rely on someone else
to make sure that it is done. With the invention of social media, and
practically everyone having a Facebook, twitter or some other account, that it
is easy to setup an account for your childcare facility and friend every family
member enrolled and just post any information you may have to let them know the
children are safe. With the disaster that happened in the Philippines, about a
month ago, social media played an important role in communicating with the
outside world. So I think that it would be a great idea to set something like
the phone tree, or social media page to inform not only families of a disaster
that happens at a child care facility or school but at home as well.
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