Are you really ready?
Last week while reading before bedtime, I started to smell smoke. You know, that dreadful house-on-fire smoke smell. I didn’t hear any sirens, but it was obvious that somewhere nearby someone’s home was burning. The next morning I read there were two home fires about a mile from me. That gave me pause to think about what I would grab with just a few moments to get out. Where were my cats? Where was that emergency crate?
We’ve seen the sad fate of many family pets in recent tragedies such as Hurricane Katrina and the Haiti earthquake. During disasters, many pets become lost, scared and separated from their families. Animal shelters, when available at all, quickly become overfilled and locating and/or identifying a pet can become a huge concern. The recent devastation from the Japan earthquake and tsunami served as yet another reminder to consider our own pet emergency preparedness.
Now that the USAR FEMA team has worked the Hotel Montana and other locations in Haiti, pulling out numerous survivors (GREAT JOB PEOPLE and dogs) there are families scrambling to find answers for those still missing.
I've received hundreds of emails and calls asking: Why I’m not over there helping; What can be done? Who do these folks turn to to find their loved ones?
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I've received hundreds of emails and calls asking: Why I’m not over there helping; What can be done? Who do these folks turn to to find their loved ones?
Skip panicked scramble in emergency; BE PREPARED
When planning for an emergency our imaginations can get carried away. Sometimes that's a good thing. If Hurricane Katrina taught us one thing it’s that we can never really imagine the horrific realities wrought by natural disasters of such magnitude.
Learning from mistakes made during events like Katrina is important, especially in the Northwest, where an earthquake or tsunami could actually occur. All the more important considering how easy it is to dismiss the possibility of such events, given their rarity. It’s likely that if or when such an event did occur here, our guard would be down.