Categories
Uncategorized

Winter Storm Warnings

A winter storm warning calling for heavy snow means severe winter weather conditions are expected or are currently happening. This can obviously make travel conditions very dangerous. If at all possible stay of the roads and just try to ride the storm out at home. If you must travel make sure to have some basic emergency supplies in your vehicle. Some items you may want to consider are: a flashlight with batteries, some food and water, a thermal or fleece blanket, emergency flares, a shovel and a basic first aid kit. These are just some suggestions but again….the best option is to avoid traveling if at all possible.

Categories
General Preparedness Personal Preparedness Personal Stories Preparedness tips

An Identity Theft Tip

An incident happened yesterday that nearly involved law enforcement, and served as a reminder to pass along to you. But first, a tiny bit of my background so you’ll know where this comes from.

It’s a long story, but part of my background in risk management involves a number of years working a variety of case types as a private investigator. Many of the cases I worked involved fraud or other forms of theft including identity theft (which is why I provide useful information in that area in Disaster Prep 101). Today, I still maintain my investigator’s licensing and my certification as an instructor though most of my work centers on terrorism and natural disaster preparedness.

So, back to the incident.

I was in a retail establishment, had just finished paying for my items and was standing at the end of the checkout counter to look at a sales flier real quick.

The guy in line behind me was checking out and gave the cashier a credit card. The card was swiped and then I noticed the cashier look at the card and then turn and type something on a small pad next to the register. It was a cell phone.

The customer got his receipt and I tapped him on the shoulder and said “Hang on just a second, I think the cashier might have something of yours.”

I asked the cashier what the device was next to the register and why it was being accessed during a transaction. I was angrily told “It’s none of your concern sir.”

I said “I need to talk with your manager right NOW!” The cashier got on the PA system and called for a manager. I turned to the guy I had asked to wait and explained to him why this might be a risk. I was still keeping a close eye on the cashier.

While we were waiting (only a minute or so) for the manager, the cashier furtively placed a calculator next to the register and slid the cell phone into her front left pants pocket.

The manager arrived and I explained quickly who I was, what I do, and what I’d seen. On hearing that, the four of us went into the manager’s office where I confronted the cashier on what I’d seen. She claimed it was a calculator she was using to calculate tax. Before I could respond, the manager said “The register does all that. Why did you need to figure tax? Let me see your phone.”

The entire affair took about an hour and when I asked to see the store’s surveillance footage, the cashier confessed. Turns out she was simply in the middle of a text conversation with a friend and no credit card data was stolen or shared. She was scared because she wasn’t supposed to be texting while on the clock.

But, it served as a great reminder how easy it is to have our data stolen so I thought I’d pass this along while giving a few identity theft prevention tips.

1. Shred your trash and don’t make it easy for thieves to get your information that way. This is pretty much common knowledge.

2. Don’t fill in the blanks for “officials” over the phone. Some thieves will dig up a little information on you and then call to make it sound like they’re with the bank, a doctor’s office, collection agency or some other authority figure that “needs to verify your information.” Don’t do it. If it’s a company name you recognize, tell them you’ll hang up and call them back through their main number that you get from your known source.

3. Don’t give out too much info online. Another bit of common knowledge.

4. At ATMs, pay close attention to the card reader. Most are internal to the ATM and don’t protrude from the surface of the machine. If it does protrude, it might be that someone has stuck a fake reader on top of the ATM for the sole purpose of having their reader get the card info off your magnetic stripe. Some thieves even go to the length of adding a small surveillance camera to read your pin number as you try to access your account.

5. Your credit card. Granted, you’re probably careful with your card, but here’s where this incident comes into play. Some card thieves use cell phones to steal info. They may use their phone’s camera to photo your card, or they may simply dial your card number as if it was a phone number. Either way, there’s your credit card number on their phone. I’ve read numerous case studies where cashiers used good memories for bad reasons. They’d look at a card, hand it back to you, and then turn and punch in the numbers or write them down in a second. With some stores, all they have to remember is the first 12 number since they can print a duplicate receipt which usually shows the last 4 digits of your card. There have also been cases where conniving cashiers brought in an electronic reader and swiped the card through it as if it was part of the store’s cash register system. Personally, I’m a big fan of stores where the card swipe machine lets you maintain possession of your card and it’s never handed to a cashier at all.

The bottom line of all this is to remind you to be aware of who has access to your financial information and to keep your eyes open even when you think you’re in a safe place. After all, that’s also the essence of good disaster preparedness, right?

Paul Purcell – Disaster Prep 101
Available through 1-800-Prepare

Categories
Food and Water General Preparedness Preparedness tips

A Food safety Tip

I travel all over the country giving preparedness presentations to a wide variety of audiences.

So who watches my place while I’m gone?

Usually my better half does, but sometimes she travels with me and neighbors keep an eye on security, plus we have an array of systems, services, electronics, etc. to help keep us safe.

But who monitors the food in the fridge? And why should anyone?

Here’s why. Some times when we get home it’s obvious there’s been a power outage. We can tell because all the clocks on the appliances that took us so long to set are now back to showing a zero or a blinking “12.”

That begs the questions, “How long was the power out, and how safe is the food?” “If we eat something, is it going to make us sick?”

Naturally, the first thing we do is ask the neighbors when we see them. And, we have some indicators we set in place before leaving.

If you travel like we do and want to know how things are when you get home, here are a few things to do to ensure food safety.

1. Take a saucer, put an ice cube in the middle of it and set it all back in the freezer. If you come home from a trip and the cube has melted and refrozen as a little pond in the saucer, then the power was out long enough for some of your more perishable items to be tossed. Things like mayonnaise, raw meats, etc. that could be very bad for you should be tossed. Other things like milk or vegetables that you can still tell whether they’re good or not (milk will sour, veggies will wilt, and so on) and can be checked and possibly saved.

2. Another thing we do is we keep two-liter plastic bottles full (well, 3/4 full actually. Need to leave room for ice expansion) of water that we stick in the freezer and let freeze solid. We do this so that if we do have a power outage, the fridge stays colder longer and so does our food. We lay the bottles on their side and when they freeze, the air bubble is along the top side of the bottle. We turn this 1/4 turn in the freezer so that the air bubble is on the side. If we come home and not only is the cube melted, but the bubble in the bottle is now at the top, that means the power was out for several hours and pretty much everything that was perishable needs to be tossed.

Better safe than sorry, and these are a couple of no-cost tricks that can help you stay safe and healthy when coming home from vacation.

Paul Purcell
Author – Disaster Prep 101
Available through 1-800-Prepare

Categories
General Preparedness Preparedness Planning

The Number One Goal of Disaster Preparedness

Sometimes, when I’m doing an on-site presentation to a group I’ll start by saying something like, “There is ONE secret to true disaster readiness that I’ll tell you at the end of my presentation.”

For my readers here today, I’ll be more direct and to the point.

The number one goal of disaster preparedness is confidence.

It’s confidence in knowing that whatever comes your way you’ve done what you can to keep your family safe.

Now granted, there’s no such thing as absolute serenity or peace, because we all know the worries we have about things that might go wrong, things other people might do, bad stuff that could happen to the ones we love and so on.

But, if you can sit and watch the evening news and see different disasters that befall others and you can sit there and say 1) “Yes, we’ve covered this in our family planning,” and 2) “Yes, we have the supplies we would need in that kind of situation,” then you should have a fair degree of confidence that you and yours are much better off that the millions who think family preparedness is not their responsibility.

Anyone who’s made it all the way through high school will still have the occasional flashback of going to class and having that pop-quiz that sent your heart straight to your throat. Many of us still have dreams where we show up to class and learn it’s final exam day and we didn’t study! Still have those? How much did you wish you had studied? Well for family emergencies, multiply that stress level times a thousand. You’ll wish you had covered the emergency in your plan and had the supplies you needed.

Remember the two key elements though: Planning and Supplies. Both go hand in hand, with a slightly greater emphasis on planning. The balance is there though. Knowledge without the ability to act is useless, and sitting on a pile of gear you have no idea what to do with is pointless. So focus on both.

Here’s a quick acronym to help. We usually give a more detailed explanation, but you’ll understand: The word is C.A.R.E. If you CARE about your family, you’ll give them:

Confidence by helping with their
Awareness (of what might happen, what you’ll do to react, and communication methods for getting early warning something’s about to happen),
Resources or supplies to make sure they have enough goods and gear on hand to weather the storm, and
Education or training to make sure everyone understands the family plan and has actually practiced the steps.

Practice is study and study is what gets you ready and gives you the confidence to face the “pop-quizzes” that mother nature or mankind might throw at us.

Paul Purcell – “Disaster Prep 101”

Categories
Uncategorized

Take a Hike!!

Literally. Or at least a nice walk. It’ll do you good.

The first chapter in “Disaster Prep 101” covers your health; the many reasons it’s your most important preparedness foundation and the simple ways you can improve yours.

Here are but a few disaster-related reasons good health is important:
1. In a disaster, the first thing to hit you is stress. The better your health, the easier the stress will be on you. (PTSD mitigation and prevention.)
2. If you are injured or infected by whatever the emergency is, the healthier you are, the faster you’ll snap back.
3. During any physical labor for search and rescue, cleanup, helping victims, etc., the greater your stamina the easier things will be for you.
4. Being healthy in general keeps you out of hospitals and frees up room for victims of future mishaps.

Health is your foundation for all other preparedness measures and you should start there first. It’s the good foundation on which your “house of readiness and self reliance” is built. So start with you and your well-being first.

In fact, focus on your health before doing pretty much anything else since it’s top of your priorities list.

We hear lots from people trying to sell us on the doomsday philosophy that society is going to collapse and you need to hoard gold, silver, and jewels. As soon as we ask these people questions like “Well how are you going to get full market value for your hoarded gold if society has collapsed and the functional economy along with it?” or “Then how come your trying to sell your gold, silver, and jewelry?” they usually clam up.

Then once we explain to them that the best investments you can make are in yourself; your health and well-being and your skill sets since “no matter where you go, there you are,” we find they start to listen. Always, always, always invest in you and your family first before anything else.

To help, here’s a quick priority list for you:

A. Do something to improve your health every day. Take a walk, take the stairs, cut down on junk food or vices.
B. Get the basics for your family. Get a starter kit (most people call them 72-hour kits), a smoke detector, and a fire extinguisher.
C. Create your basic family emergency plan.
D. Invest in your skill sets. Take a CPR class, a first aid class, learn more about family financial planning, or take a cooking class so you’ll know how to make your food supplies last. Even learning to cut hair is a barterable skill.
E. Expand on each of the above. Gather gear as needed, take more classes, and always put you and your health first.

Skip the gold and jewels and take a hike!! Focus on you. You’ll be all the better for it in the short run and long run.

Paul Purcell – “Disaster Prep 101”

Categories
Charities/Groups we support Emergency Responders Personal Stories Preparedness tips Search and Rescue

Saving a life

 Very early on Tuesday November 2nd, my search dog saved a life. 

This is not something that happens to me every day, I have a very calm office job.  The usual crisis involves a mis-communication over email, nothing life and death.  My work with canine search and rescue is my volunteer work.  It’s something I do to keep three highly active dogs busy and just maybe, get to make a difference in the world. 

It’s something I have spent  thousands of my own dollars for training, thousands of hours of my time, thousands of miles on my vehicle, traveled to both coasts of the United States, and used lots of emotional/mental/physical energy.  I’ve also been in canine search and rescue for 10 years. 

It is worth every second/penny and more to know that my dog and I brought someones father safely home. 

The other interesting thing is, someone had thrown away my dog.  Dunder the Search Dog (aka Moses) was turned into the Animal Rescue League of Iowa in the spring of 2008.  The family wasn’t ready for a high energy, mouthy, barky puppy who was really pushy.  They turned him in at 16 weeks old.  Lucky for me, the Paws of Life Foundation has a program to find dogs such as this and then places them with working dog handlers.

I didn’t train Dunder by myself so can’t take all the credit.  I regularly work with other search teams here in Iowa, I have hundreds of people who have hidden for him, helped me troubleshoot my training and also provided advice.  Out on the search that night where people from three different fire departments, two law enforcement agencies, two different search and rescue teams and the military (that’s who I can think of off the top of my head). 

 A search like this is an emergency, the subject wasn’t dressed for the weather and with lows in the 40’s that night, could easily have succumbed to hypothermia.  We had plans to search all night. 

When we found our subject, Dunder was truly excited, I was flustered.  First, I forgot his toy, which is his reward for finding someone.  We ended up playing tug with my shirt while I was on the phone with the Search Manager to request an ambulance.  Second, we ended up removing our layers of clothes to help cover him to keep him warm until the ambulance arrived.  Dunder was constantly trying to get back to him, I think to check and see if he was okay.

For the past couple of days I’ve come to realize, this is sort of a big deal.  I see the world a little differently now, I also see my profession of a search and rescue canine handler a little differently.  It is a life or death job…the dogs we train do make a difference.

We need to step up and meet the responsibility.

Wags,

Robin Habeger and K9 Dunder

Categories
Uncategorized

Daylight Savings Time – Rotate Your Clock, Rotate Your Stock

One of the biggest issues with teaching preparedness is letting people know there are countless ways to make preparedness a subtle part of your current lifestyle.

Too many people think that “preparedness” is equal somehow to “survivalism” and that it means a total shift in their day to day living.

Not true.

Genuine preparedness is not complex at all. In fact I constantly use tell people that real readiness makes SENSE; it’s Simple, Economical, Necessary, Subtle, and Effective, and that’s the litmus test you should give everything you hear when others try to tell you how to protect your family.

Today’s tip from 1-800-Prepare follows this philosophy by giving you a reminder you can use twice a year to update some of your family’s protective measures.

It’s just about Daylight Savings Time, so when you rotate your clock, rotate your stock. You’ll want to look at, or update some of the following:

1. Change the batteries in your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
2. Check the pressure gauge on your fire extinguisher to make sure it’s reading full.
3. Check the expiration dates on stored food, medications, or over-the-counter medications you use daily.
4. Look through your list of family emergency contacts to make sure the people, phone numbers, email addresses and all that are current and correct.
5. Check the expiration dates on drivers licenses and other important documents.
6. See if you have acquired any new documents since your last rotation to see if you need to make any copies to go in your safe deposit box or other secure document storage.
7. Check the maintenance needs for all your vehicles. If any need servicing have it done now.
8. See if any family members (including pets!) are due for a medical or dental checkup.
9. Review at least one of your reaction plans, such as your family fire drill.

These are the main points and about all we can squeeze into a short posting. Note: If you’re already the proud owner of “Disaster Prep 101” you have the complete master checklist for items to check around the house this time of year. If not, you can get your copy through 1-800-Prepare.

Categories
Partners

The Terror Threat Continues

In today’s news, we’re reminded that terror threats continue; this time in the form of surface to surface missiles fired from containers aboard cargo ships entering our harbors. Here’s a link for the story: http://www.wsbtv.com/news/25555225/detail.html

Here’s why this matters. There are two things we can do wrong in our preparedness planning. One, we too often forget about certain threats, and two, we focus too much on certain threats.

Contradictory?

Not really. An important but often overlooked aspect of realistic preparedness planning is balance. Balance in the types of threats we plan for, balance in the way we incorporate readiness in our daily lives, and balance between awareness and fear.

At 1-800 Prepare, we urge you to maintain balance. We want you to be ready for the bad things that could happen but we want you to realize that if you’re prepared for one threat you’re pretty much prepared for a variety of threats, so you’re good.

We want you to blend readiness into your family’s life in a subtle, seamless way. In other words, have your plan, have your kits, and be ready, but don’t unduly alter your lifestyle or live in fear. Preparedness should be like the fire extinguishers in your house. You know why you have them, how to use them, and where they are and you feel safer because of it. You don’t walk around fearing fire because you’re confident and ready.

So it is with all threats. Know what might happen, how you’ll react, what equipment and supplies will protect your family, and you should gain confidence from knowing you’re ready.

Let us know if you need more information about specific threats, advice on the types of supplies or kits you might need for your particular situation, and if you need additional training (and we can set up on-site training), or if there are other ways in which we can help.

The news won’t run out of threat stories to air, and we won’t run out of solutions that will help.

Categories
Uncategorized

Use the News

One of the things I say continuously in my presentations as a disaster preparedness trainer is “the news channels will never go out of business.”

This means that there will always be something bad for them to report, but that also, there will be far more viewers unaffected by what’s going on than there will be victims.

So today’s tip is “Use the News.”

With current headlines echoing a volcanic eruption and tsunami in Indonesia, and severe weather in the Midwest around Chicago, we have opportunities to discuss readiness.

Most people will watch these stories on the news and say “Oh, how awful!”

But you, being the readiness-oriented in the group can say “You know what we’d do if that happened in this area?” And there you go. Your opportunity to use the news.

Use the news as a reminder to have a fire drill, to examine your home’s structure in advance of an earthquake, to prompt you to check you level of supplies you keep on hand for various emergencies, and to discuss reaction steps with your family.

Do you have small children? Taking the “Here’s what we’d do” approach with them serves several purposes at once.

1. It teaches them to look at bad news in a more positive manner.
2. It involves them in family planning so they can grow up making preparedness a subtle part of their life.
3. It provides an opportunity for them to seek the solution rather than focusing on the problem.
4. It reassures them that you’re in control and things will be alright.

Paul Purcell
Author – “Disaster Prep 101”
(Available at 1800Prepare)

Categories
First Aid Personal Preparedness Seasonal Flu

Flu Shots

We’re always in one “season” or another.

We’re leaving hurricane season and now we’re getting in to flu season. Never seems to let up with going from one danger zone to the next, huh? The good thing is, we’ve labeled our “seasons” so we know to react accordingly.

For flu season, brush up on your interpersonal etiquette and remember to keep your distance from folks who are sneezing or coughing, and cover your own sneezes and coughs in the crook of your elbow. And if hand sanitizer is part of your defensive arsenal, go ahead and stock up on a little now.

In response to flu season “Google Local” has put together a map showing flu shot providers who have listed their services. Go to http://www.google.org/flushot to see who in your area is providing shots this season. While the debate continues over the need and/or effectiveness of flu shots, one thing remains true; if a flu shot is part of your safety plan, we want to be able to help you find one.