We can prepare our homes for emergencies and have a peace of mind in doing so. But what are the chances that we will be home when a disaster does strike? People go to work. Kids go to school. Parents go grocery shopping and run other errands. Retired folks go to their activities and volunteer commitments. In short, houses quite often sit empty all day as busy Americans are off doing what they do. (Which is why a home security system is critical—but that’s another topic.)
So who says emergency preparedness at home is enough?
We’re hardly home, so are we prepared?
Think about a typical day for a typical American: During the 24 hours, someone employed full-time outside of the home is going to spend 8 hours at work, 1 hour at lunch, at least 1 hour driving to and from work, 1 hour at the gym after work and at least half of an hour running errands or getting gas. That’s almost 12 hours, which means your typical American is away from home at least half the time.
That’s why it’s imperative that your preparedness include your home, but also extend to other places you or your family might be, like in a car or at work.
Your home
Even if you’re not home in the event of an emergency, someone might be, whether that’s your spouse who works a different schedule, kids home from school or an elderly parent. And, of course, it could very well be that you are home when all goes awry. The time to start preparing your home—and your family—for an emergency or a disaster is now. It’s easy to think, “Oh, we should really do that,” but only thinking about it (not doing it) will do you no good at all when disaster strikes. You can get five practical tips for preparing your home for a disaster here, plus there is plenty of other advice and even checklists to be found on the Internet. So get started and get prepared.
Your car
Americans average 101 minutes per day in their cars. That increases the likelihood that you could be behind the wheel when that tornado, earthquake or other disaster strikes. For that reason, we recommend that you equip not only your home for emergencies, but your cars as well—and that includes keeping them maintained and gassed up. Get tips on preparing your car for emergencies here.
Your work
Americans spend a lot of their time at work (adults) or at school (kids). You likely don’t have a whole lot of say about emergency preparedness, either at your workplace or your child’s school. Therefore, educating and preparing yourself is a good idea at the very least, as well as training your kids. You can also start doing some awareness raising with detailed and helpful emergency preparedness information for businesses that you can share. In addition, the Red Cross has created an online assessment for businesses and schools to use to evaluate how prepared they are (or aren’t) for an emergency that might also be a good starting place for ensuring your workplace is ready.
What we really want to tell you is, you need not worry, that you’ll never face an emergency or disaster. But we can’t. Instead, we suggest you take the protection and prevention mentality of home security and apply it to every area of your family’s life–at home, work, school and even in your cars–to increase the chances that you’ll come through an unforeseen incident unscathed.