Tips for Planning for an Emergency

When it comes to emergency planning, there’s never too much you can do. That said, some methods of preparation are much more practical and applicable than others. To ensure you’ve checked off all of the most important steps, here’s a list of tips for ways that you can prepare for emergencies at home.

While there isn’t one fool-proof plan that can cure all emergencies, there are general preparedness tips that can help ensure most cases result in a better outcome. Here are a few of those tips to get you started on a comprehensive home safety plan:

Make a Checklist

A safety protocol checklist isn’t merely essential for ensuring you cover all of your bases; it can help someone think through a situation if they experience shock or are distracted by danger. This will help you to maintain control and think logically in the face of an highly stressful situation. That’s why you should be sure to create an emergency evacuation checklist long before you find yourself facing trouble or danger.

While your checklist can include items that you’ll want to assemble in the case of an emergency, it can also include an evacuation plan, directions, a map or any other reminders particular to your home that might prove helpful.

If you’re in a dangerous situation or have sustained an injury, your memory will not function as well as it usually does. Make a checklist in advance to remind you of small details that could help you survive.

Preparing an Emergency Kit

In some situations, emergencies call for an immediate evacuation of the location where you happen to be; in other scenarios, such as extreme storms and natural disasters, the safest thing that you can do may be to stay at home.

You never know what kind of situation you’ll have to face, and having an emergency kit on hand may prove vital. You’ll need to include things that will be useful if you end up trapped at home for an extended time. Some of the most important things for this type of kit include

• First-Aid Kit
• Thermal blanket
• Waterproof matches
• Battery-free Flashlight
• Hand-powered Radio
• Portable Water Filtration Device
• Multi-tool
• Batteries
• Heavy Duct-tape
• N95 Masks
• Non-perishable or Emergency Foods
• Supply of Water

While you might have some of these things lying around the home for general use, part of the purpose of assembling an emergency kit is to ensure you don’t have to go searching for the things you need when it is dangerous to do so. You or someone in your home could also have sustained an injury, which will make finding these items quickly all the more essential.

That’s why you must never open up your kit in everyday situations so that the items inside remain in place when you need them.

Specialty Emergency Equipment

Besides assembling an emergency kit with smaller items that might be useful in any scenario, there are a few other devices that you may be interested in acquiring to ensure a safe home.

For example, you may not realize that you can purchase evacuation chairs for stairs that can allow a single person to assist anyone who has difficulty with stairways for any reason. If you live in a building that contains an elevator, you never know when someone might be present who could have to rely on an escape chair if the elevator is down.

At Evacuscape, we believe that no one with mobility issues should have to rely on emergency response times to get to safety in an unsafe building. Our escape chairs are simple to use, cost-effective and can be stored easily for ready access.

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Knowing the Four Stages of Evacuation

As in the case of being prepared with a checklist and an emergency kit, knowing the basics of emergency evaluation and procedure can help you stay in control in the face of danger and plan accordingly. That’s why the four stages of evacuation were designed to help people better understand safety protocols.

The four stages are

• Immediate Evacuation: Exit the Building Immediately
• Lateral Evacuation: Move to a Safer Area
• Partial Evacuation: Only Certain Floors of a Building Must Be Evacuated
• Full Evacuation: The Entire Building Must Be Evacuated

Each stage refers to a different response to the emergency at hand as evaluated by response professionals. As in the case of any emergency, you are responding to the unknown, so the better informed you can be, the better you’ll be able to act in a way to increase your chances of a positive outcome.

Safety Training

In an emergency, anything can happen. For example, you might find yourself with a person who needs medical attention without the ability to get them to a hospital. If you are trapped, or your usual means of transportation is unavailable, being able to perform basic first-aid could help save a life.

That’s why taking first-aid training is never a bad idea. Remember, if you attempt to provide someone with medical care when you aren’t properly trained, you could worsen the matter.

Evacuation Laws

It can help anyone to gain a basic understanding of evacuation laws so that they understand their basic rights before emergencies happen. If something pertains to your particular living situation, learning could be a helpful tool.

More importantly, however, property owners that are responsible for providing safe buildings to their tenants and the general public should be well informed with evacuation laws to ensure that they uphold every requirement for building safety.

When it comes to home safety, there’s nothing more important than being prepared for emergencies. While you can never predict the exact contingencies that you’ll have to face when confronted with danger, becoming informed and preparing in advance will help you to stand a much better chance of getting to safety and helping others around you to stay safe as well. And you’ll be even better equipped when you invest in an escape chair from Evacuscape to keep at home at all times.