Family Emergency Preparedness
Preparing for a variety of emergencies should be an important part of every family’s life. Whether it is fire, an intruder, major weather event, terrorist attack or something else, each family member should know what to do in each of these situations.
Planning
In my house, the 13th of every month is Family Fire Safety and Emergency Preparedness night. I have a recurring alert set in my phones calendar to remind me. Each month we select one area of fire safety or emergency preparedness to discuss and review at dinner. We may discuss or review topics such as where to meet in case of a fire, the need to replace or install smoke detectors or carbon monoxide detectors, what to do if no one is there to greet the bus when our third grader gets home from school or what situations might require all family members to leave school or work early and head for home (for us, this would be another 9/11-like terrorist attack or other extreme event).
Smoke Detectors and Fire Extinguishers
This month, we need to discuss the age of one smoke detector battery that I don’t think ever got changed last fall. This particular smoke detector is in the peak of our cathedral ceiling and requires a long ladder or our tallest son to climb on top of the refrigerator to reach it.
In addition to the one smoke detector battery, we need to follow up from last month checking on the fire extinguishers in the garage. It has been quite a while since anyone checked the expiration date and pressure in those extinguishers (did you know that fire extinguishers have an expiration date??).
Generator
Right now we are expecting Blizzard Stella, which could drop 16 to 24 inches of snow in upstate New York, has reminded us to check to make sure the generator works and that there’s surficient fuel to power it in case of power outages from forecasted high winds.
So it sounds like will get a variety of things accomplished in our monthly family fire safety and emergency preparedness night!
Does your family do any type of regular fire safety or emergency preparedness? If so what do you do? I’d love to hear about it!
Aileen
