How To Help Your Community Prepare For an Emergency

Ask local organizations to help you set up events to prepare the community for an emergency. Possibilities include faith-based groups, disaster relief organizations, neighborhood associations, PTAs, and more.

Once you’ve scoped out the project, make a list of roles for volunteers in the planning, promotion, and delivery of the event. Recruit from your personal network and the groups you are working with.

Organize a document-duplication event – a day when community members can go to a central location to photocopy the important documents they’d need in the event of an evacuation. Encourage them to store the papers in something waterproof, like a sealable plastic bag.

Put together emergency supply kits with donated supplies or with money collected from fundraising efforts, private donations, and local businesses. Tap community leaders to help identify neighbors who require assistance and distribute kits to those in need.

Invite a representative from your Red Cross chapter or a local government agency to speak about how best to evacuate in the event of an emergency.

Hand out evacuation plan checklists at the meeting. Urge attendees to take responsibility for elderly or physically challenged neighbors who might have trouble vacating their home.

Encourage neighbors to prepare a check-in plan, and to write down a contact number or location where friends and relatives can check in with them after a disaster.