students – 1800PrepareBlog

Students attending public school may receive more than an education these days. They may receive survival kits direct from the government. In Florence and Lauderdale Counties, they’re handing out 300 kits to students, administered by the Emergency Management Agency.

However, as a parent who is concerned about emergency preparedness, you won’t want to rely on these kits. Here’s what’s in a kit:

“Notebooks, pens, pencils, glue sticks, dictionaries and three ring binders,” said Lauderdale County EMA Planner Mark Senf.

What makes this a preparedness kit? Well, the kits contain information from the Department of Public Health about cleanliness and the flu, plus pamphlets on how to prepare for emergencies, disasters and severe weather.

It’s interesting that the Emergency Management Agency has dubbed these “preparedness kits” because of the addition of the pamphlets. If you rely on these for your children, or if you’re a teacher and rely on these for your students, you won’t be prepared. It’s great to get informed about what to do in case of emergencies, but you need more than information in a time of crisis.

Instead of brochures and pamphlets, make sure you give your kids a children’s survival kit, which contains supplies that are geared toward children. If you’re a teacher, making the investment in a classroom survival kit for students ensures that students without kits will have the supplies they need.

Source:

http://www.whnt.com/news/whnt-ema-gives-preparedness-kits-to-students,0,7000254.story

Remember the days in college when the biggest headache was always the dorm fire drill? The RAs always seemed to delight in pulling the fire alarm at 3:00 in the morning. These days, you can apparently get interrupted at any time via text message. Western Illinois University checked out its emergency alert system recently:

“People who receive test calls, e-mails or texts do not need to take any action. When messages are received, simply listen to or read the test message and then hang up and delete the message. Test messages will be sent to phone numbers and e-mail addresses in the WEAS emergency contact database.”

Remembering how we all were back in the day, it’s likely that most students will look at it and shrug, and then delete the message before focusing back on whatever they were doing. This is unfortunate, because college should have been a time to network and plan for emergency situations, especially when you have a close-knit group of likeminded friends. You basically have two options in a major emergency situation: join the herd and go where they tell you and then hope that someone will show up with a sandwich and a bottle of water for you, or be prepared so you can help others.

Here’s another tip: If you live in a college town but don’t attend classes there, you might still be able to sign up to receive emergency alerts from the campus system. You’ll often receive those before the media finds out about an emergency, so you can be a step ahead of everyone else.

Source:

http://www.qctimes.com/news/local/e7e4adaa-de7b-11de-ab76-001cc4c002e0.html