OPERATION PREPAREDNESS

[Trevorum 24]

Hurricanes. Floods. Tornadoes, Ice storms. Earthquakes. Fires.

 

A recent SM minute on being prepared (shared here in the SM Minutes forum) got our CC and me to start talking about family preparedness. Are our families ready for the unexpected? Do we have flashlights and a crescent wrench at the ready? Are we ready to cook for our family with no power?

 

We decided to create a program for the troop called Operation Preparedness. Some of it will be education, but the highlight of the month-long program will be a weekend in which each family (voluntarily, of course) simulates a disaster. At 6pm on Friday the main breaker to the house is thrown. The family can turn it back on whenever they want, but the goal will be noon on Sunday. The family will know this "disaster" is coming of course, and can arrange not to have lots of frozen foods on hand. But the advance planning (how will we cook meals? what will we do without lights?) will help families get prepared in case a real sitution occurs.

 

We would welcome other ideas you may have to work into our program that would help our Scouts learn about being prepared.

 

[Prairie_Scouter 10]

I think you should have a big banquet the night before each family throws that breaker to make sure that their refrigerators are emptied out. Wouldn't want to let all that food spoil

[resqman 108]

There are numerouse BSA awards and publications to use.

 

Emergency Preparedness merit badge

First Aid - presented in a variety of awards.

Wilderness Survival merit badge

and of course the

Emergency Preparedenss BSA http://www.scouting.org/pubs/emergency/

Don't overlook Cooking and Camping merit badges

 

FEMA and American Red Cross both have webpages on designing and assembling a family 72 hour kit. Check these web pages.

http://www.ready.gov/america/index.html

http://www.redcross.org/services/prepare/0,1082,0_77_,00.html

 

Don't forget the FEMA CERT program. This may be something that you may want to look into as a form of troop training. This is a good lead in or refresher for many of the merit badges including First Aid, Fire Safety, and Emergency Preparedness http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/CERT/

 

There are a number of websites that promote personal preparedness.

 

http://www.equipped.org/ "Equipped To Survive will help you determine the best choices to prepare for anything from a hike in the park to a life threatening emergency or disaster." Numerous awards for family and kid friendly information. Excellent equipment reviews and pages and pages of How To information.

 

http://theepicenter.com/information.html "We not only sell high quality emergency preparedness equipment, but we also provide free disaster planning guides and information." Primarily a vendor but lots of good information around planning. View the Tip'o Week

 

http://www.survival-center.com/ "We've got loads of free preparedness tips covering specific disaster types, surviving nuclear disasters, evacuation planning, bioterrorism protection, SARS self defense, food and water preservation and storage, weapons procurement, caching, first aid and survival medicine, plus reviews of survival books and products." Check out the 'For Beginners' and the 'Bug Out Bag Links'

 

Check out a paperback book from Tom Brown: Tom Brown's Field Guide to City and Suburban Survival (Tom Brown's Field Guides) ISBN: 0425091724 $11.20 new, $9.07 for used copies from Amazon.com Tom has written a number of survival books but this one is for those who are not camping. It offers many examples to use while staying in a typical american home during an emergency without purchasing additional equipment.

 

There are many other websites and forums that offer preparedness information. The above should be generally accepted as pro-family, pro personal responsibility, and do not have what may be considered extreme militaristic or rambo mentalitity type information.

 

I believe it is attributed to Daniel Boone that said " I have never been lost but I have been a bit confused once and awhile" SAR personel are taught when they get lost, to treat it as an impromptu camping trip. You are not lost, you are just camping. The same can be applied to a 72 power outage in your family home. Treat it as a camping trip in your home.

 

Close off parts of you home to maintain heat in a few keep areas. Pitch a tent indoors to provide an even smaller area to maintain heat while sleeping. Backyard grills and camping stoves do a fine job of cooking food. Candles can be lite and provide alternate lighting. Be sure to remind families to ensure the smoke detectors have charged batteries and they have fire extingishers on hand if using open flames like candles and kerosene lanterns or heaters indoors. CO detectors are also very important if using any open flame applicances like portable heaters, stoves, fireplaces, etc. Remind them to crack a window even during cold times to provide a continual source of fresh air. If filling liquid fuel appliances like Coleman stoves and lanterns or kerosene heaters and lanterns, perform that task out of doors when the appliance is cool and have a fire extinguisher on hand.

 

Dutch oven cooking makes tasty food in the back yard just as well as they do on a campout.

[CA_Scouter 11]

Ever since Katrina, my ASM's and I have been pushing to get the scouts to create their home emergency kits, come up with a family escape plan, meeting place, etc. Its been really slow going, however, so I pushed the PLC to reinvigorate the troops. We are going to have weekly updates on the progress of all the scouts.

 

Your simulated emergency seems like a neat idea. I think you'll be lucky to have anyone get to Sunday though.. :-)

 

FYI - There is an excellent site on preparing yourself and your family that has been heavily promoted in the San Francisco Bay Area. http://www.72hours.org/ Lots of great information.

 

As we are approaching the winter months now, we are also emphasizing 'being prepared' in your automobile should you encounter emergencies, bad weather, snow, etc., carrying rain gear, gloves, flashlight, firstaid kit, etc.

 

So much to teach eh? ( I learned it all when I was a Scout ).