Ready for tornadoes like in Fairdale? Answer our questions and find out
Mike Rullman is president of the Elburn Community Emergency Response Team, a group of volunteers training to help if disaster strikes. His personal preparedness goes beyond having a bottle of water and a Clif bar ready when seeking shelter from a possible tornado.
Rullman has four “go” bags at the ready: There's one with food, including dried items; a bag of first-aid supplies; one with light tools and other gear, including a hard hat, rope, a gas mask and a disposable rain jacket; and a bag of heavier tools. He's clearly on the high end of the “are you ready?” scale of preparedness.
The April 9 tornadoes that struck Fairdale and Rochelle beg the question: How well are the rest of us prepared for natural disaster? Not as much as we should be.
Most of us are not even close to Rullman.
And according to a 2009 nationwide survey, the No. 1 reason we aren't preparing is that we think firefighters and police are going to take care of us.
Rullman can disabuse you of that notion.
“It is just so out of whack,” he said, of the ratio of first responders to people. Nationally, in 2013, there were 6.46 firefighters per 1,000 people covered by a fire department or district, according to the National Fire Protection Association.
That's why the Federal Emergency Management Agency strongly suggests that you be prepared to help yourself, your family and your neighbors in the first three days after a disaster.
It also wants you trained to do so safely, by promoting CERTs such as Elburn's. CERTs offer training in topics such as search-and-rescue, first aid, debris removal, chain-saw safety, food preparation and more. Several dozen suburbs, as small as Elburn and as large as Naperville, have organized CERTs.
Ready?
If you had to run to the basement now with a tornado approaching, would you have food and water to sustain you for a day if trapped?
What if you had to leave in 15 minutes, because water from Salt Creek was lapping in to your house? Do you have enough of your blood pressure and diabetes medication squirreled away to last a couple of days at a shelter?
How about cash to pay for incidentals, should credit card network lines be down?
How are you going to get a hold of your family?
What will you do with your pets?
In 2009, the Citizen Corps — a federal agency created in 2002 to coordinate and prepare volunteers to serve communities — surveyed people in 4,461 households in the U.S.
• Only 57 percent of the respondents said they had an emergency kit in their house; only 34 percent did in their car.
• Most kits just contained food and water. Fewer had flashlights, first-aid supplies or a portable radio.
• Just 38 percent of respondents said they knew where to get official public-safety information.
• Fifty-three percent said they knew what to do within 5 minutes of experiencing a natural disaster such as flood, tornado or earthquake.
• Fifteen percent said they had physical limitations that would affect their abilities in a disaster.
• Suburban residents were better prepared than city folk, but rural residents were most likely to have undergone disaster-related training or have volunteered at a disaster.
• Forty-two percent said that besides expecting help from first responders, they would rely on community- and faith-based nonprofit organizations to help them if disaster struck.
Eventually, aid
Agencies such as the American Red Cross, of course, are prepared to deploy emergency shelters and canteens at a moment's notice. And since the 1960s, faith- and community-based organizations have organized to help.
More than 100 of them belong to the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster organization. They communicate and coordinate with each other to provide service efficiently.
Southern Baptist Disaster Relief is one of them. It sent a team to where a series of tornadoes struck near Rochelle and Fairdale.
In Illinois, about 1,600 people are certified through the Baptist effort.
It has three training weekends a year to certify people. Everybody first has to take an “Introduction to Disasters” class. Then they can take specialty classes, such as learning how to operate a chain saw, clean up after flooding, cook for crowds, take care of children and deal with people's spiritual needs.
Some people choose to learn everything, said Rex Alexander, director of the Illinois division of the group, “because they love the ministry and want to be trained for every ministry.”
The organization also does a criminal-background check on the volunteers.
The call for volunteers typically comes from National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster. The Baptist group will also come out at the request of one of its local congregations.
Sometimes the American Red Cross or Salvation Army will request it, because they know what the Baptist group is capable of doing. For example, those agencies know the Southern Baptists are good at feeding large crowds.
The Illinois chapter has a truck-based kitchen that can provide up to 20,000 meals a day, and two smaller units that can handle 6,000 meals a day.
“It really is based on relationship in this kind of ministry,” Alexander said. “They will contact us because we have done a good job in the past.”
“Our marching orders are to provide help, healing and hope during times of disaster,” he said.
But even they can't always get in to help right away. Authorities may cordon off an area for a day or two for safety, if electrical lines are down or natural-gas pipes have been damaged.
“My experience is people don't do anything (to prepare) until something happens in their backyard,” Alexander said. “Probably none of us do that as good as we should.”
Your emergency kit
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has designated April 30 as <a href="http://www.community.fema.gov/connect.ti/AmericasPrepareathon/view?objectId=3222352&exp=e1">“America's Prepareathon.”</a> It provides tips to deal with flooding, tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes and winter storms, and recommends having <a href="http://www.ready.gov/kit">basic supplies</a> to get you through the first 72 hours after disaster strikes, whether you are stuck at work or home, or if you have to evacuate.
<b>Basic kit:</b>
• Flashlights/lanterns (hand-cranked preferred)
• A portable radio (hand-cranked preferred)
• Batteries
• A gallon of water per day
• Nonperishable food for three days
• Manual can opener
• First-aid supplies
• Whistle or an air horn (for alerting rescuers if you are trapped)
• Dust mask
• Change of clothing, including long-sleeved shirt, long pants and sturdy shoes.
<b>Also:</b>
• Prescription medicines and eyeglasses
• A cellphone charger or power inverter
• Plastic bags and towelettes for hygiene use
• Cash
• Mess kit
• Copies of important papers, including insurance documents, or a thumb drive with that info
<b>An app for that?</b> FEMA has apps. And the American Red Cross has a new Emergency app that combines their previous apps for disasters and first aid.
Source: FEMA.gov; ready.gov; redcross.org