2 Simple Steps that Get You & Your Family Prepared for Emergencies
Date: Sunday August 30, 2009Posted in: Family
With the 2 simple steps this article contains, you can take the necessary steps to get yourself and your family prepared for 2 common, yet different emergencies that can be anywhere from annoying and costly to personally devastating. September, the National Preparedness Month, is upon us. Now is the time to get your family prepared!
In their 6th year, the National Preparedness Month (NPM) is supported by Coalition Members across the USA, in a nationwide effort sponsored by the Ready Campaign, which is helping you be aware and prepared. Many people think they’re prepared or don’t think it will happen to them. Yet it happens! There are two simple steps, with a couple of common sense tips that will get you ready and prepared for the 2 most common emergencies. What are they? Quick and easy, these 2 simple steps will save you the hassle and frustration in the wake of such emergencies! Travel often? Then these make even more sense to implement into your life.
Emergency #1 - Stolen Wallet Take a few minutes and make a photocopy of everything in your wallet including the front and back of your credit cards and membership cards. Place the copied pages in a manila envelope and mark the envelope “Contents of Wallet” and date it. Place the envelope in your safe deposit box. Mark your calendar for 3 to 6 months from now to update your “Contents of Wallet” envelope. Now, if your wallet is lost or stolen you will now know exactly what you lost and whom you need to contact.
Emergency #2 - Wild Fire, Break In or Flood Truly, the best way to prepare for one of these emergencies is to have a fireproof safe in your home. A safe deposit box is a great idea, but is inconvenient and inaccessible most of the time. Although, it is very safe, so don’t rule it out. Just last year in Southeast Minnesota there were flood victims that had to work very hard to prove the loss they suffered to their property. Mortgage title, deeds and all of their housing documents were lost in the flood. Keeping these important and hard to replace documents, along with a detailed inventory (including photos, see below) of all items in your house, make the recovery process easier for you and all other agencies involved.
Take a Household Inventory Now is the time to take a digital camera, snap some photos and make an inventory of the items in your home. Even if you don’t have a DVD burner at your home, there are many drug stores that offer the technology at their convenient locations. Three copies of this photo CD (or DVD) go to three different places. One will stay with you and go in your personal safe, your insurance agent gets one and the final copy goes to the executor of your Will. Include appraisals or receipts for high dollar items and put those in your safe along with your CD or DVD of photos. You could even make digital copies of these documents and make another CD as record.
Family Photos Protected A simple solution to the worry about the old family photos destroyed in a fire is to have the family photos scanned to a photo CD, very much like your household inventory. Distribute about three copies to other family members for safe keeping.
HOT TIP! Use ICE! ICE is: In Case of Emergency; now use it as part of the name of someone you would want to be contacted in the case you have an unexpected trip to the nearest Emergency Room. Everyone has a cell phone, now you and hospitals can use it to an advantage!
Implement these simple home organization and emergency planning tips and you could end up saving yourself a lot of energy, money, time and frustration. Visit the Ready Campaign’s government website for more helpful tips at http://www.ready.gov/america/index.html.
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