Published on August 4th, 2021
It’s 10 o’clock in the morning when the earth begins to shake. You are at work, you know your spouse is at their job as well, while your two children are in school. This is the real world scenario of being prepared for natural disasters, this is where most of the best laid plans come apart. In this episode we will discuss having enough flexibility in your meet-up plans to ensure you can stay on plan regardless of the issues that pop up during the fallout from a major event. During our time today I’d like us took at identifying the location to meet regardless of the disaster encountered. We’ll discuss the inclusion of all personnel included in your group regardless where they may be when the event occurs. Having redundancy plans for meetings which may include deviations to gatherings for hospital or other pertinent locations.
Let’s answer a few related questions that y’all have sent me:
Diana from Eastern Washington says “in all the times we have talked about having a plan, Mother Nature never seems to act up when my plan says so.” You are 100% right Diana, Mother Nature seems to have a mind of her own. In this episode we’ll look at making sure we have several different scenarios as our launch point for our plan.
Mike from Southern California echoes that sentiment by saying “of the dozen or so quakes I’ve experienced here in SoCal, it has only happened once where I was in bed, so my plan worked flawlessly”. Again, I couldn’t agree more, and that’s where I have always cautioned about where you need to be to implement your plan. Whether you are at the gym, the grocery store, or out to lunch with friends, getting from where you are to where you need to be is important.
Brady from Southern Idaho says “I wonder how safe it is to be on the city streets after a sizable event, isn’t that going to be problematic?” Yes, it is going to be problematic, however your family is more important, and getting back to them to be a useful resource for their survival is a critical element to your success. Chances are you’re going to be stuck in some crazy traffic, but again the mission is to get to your rally location.
Joe from Northern Alabama echos that by saying “don’t we want to shelter in place?” Not always Joe. There are a myriad of reasons we may want to evacuate our current location, and SMS communications with your home team may become even more critical. But, we’ll cover so potential decision matrixes that you can use.
Finally, Bonnie from Northern Ohio brings up an interesting point, “what if you’re an essential worker?” That’s a great point, however ensuring your family is safe with appropriate plans to move forward in your absence is something you need to include in your planning sessions with family members.
These were all great questions, as were the ones I replied to via email and messenger. I deeply appreciate y’all taking the time to send me a message. If you didn’t get to your question here, sorry about that, hopefully you got an email of messenger note back with an answer.
Greetings to all my friends (both new and old), to my wonderful family, my fellow Alaskans, and my fellow Americans, wherever you are. Welcome to the Alaska Outlaw podcast, I am the Alaska Outlaw, thank you so much for joining me today. In today’s episode I’d like to talk about being prepared for the inevitable, a mass shooting event, as they are becoming common place in today’s society. Hopefully giving an idea of how to react during those first critical minutes are absolutely elemental in the level of success we can hope for. Honestly, the best tool we have against being involved in one of these types of incidents is being prepared.
But, before we get after it today, I’d like to make sure that, for those of you who seek peace of mind and harmony with the world we find ourselves in today, or just need help in making sense of life, be sure to check out the Alaska Outlaw Forn-sidr podcast at http://forn-sidr.akoutlaw.com. After 30 years of spiritual searching and discovery, I have arrived home. Home to the ideology of of my ancestors. Home of a proud Germanic-Dane heritage. Some really good stuff for you there. Also, another second just to give a shout-out for our sponsors and affiliates:
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Shout out to all of them for supporting the mission here at Alaska Outlaw, we greatly appreciate taking a risk by supporting an “Outlaw” show. Please visit their links on our webpage and show them some love, they, like each of us, needs to pay their peeps.
Today I’d like to talk about several different aspects of this pre-planning session. Firstly we’ll talk about launch plans, essentially ensuring that each member of the team understands their role, as well as a possible redundancy plan. Next, we’ll cover possible deviations to the plan. This may include a visit to an emergency center for an injury, or a separate location because a school evacuated to another, safer location. Finally we’ll talk about some expectations we should have when moving from where we start, to the rally point. Having mapped routes with alternates will be a good start, as almost any reason may present itself to inhibit travel.
Ultimately we need to be able to get to the starting line of surviving the event. There may be plenty of obstacles in our way to success, however, one of our primary objectives in getting the team together is the stress reliever provided to the mental challenge before us. Knowing that our kids, our spouses, our parents, as well as other family members are safe and ready to help get us through this emergency is going to be critical to our success. We know that even minor setbacks, children injured enough for medical attention, can torpedo the greatest plans. But, having a plan for that unplanned event ensures that we are not far out of our plan.
So, we’ll start our dive today with identifying our Launch plans. Our plans can’t always begin with “there I was resting at home when…”. So, let’s break down the pre-step one plans. Our “step one” is rallying our members together in a safe place, ready to engage our disaster recovery plans. That may not be in our living rooms, it might be in your office, or your spouses office, or the local school. So, there we are, at work. Our spouse is at their office, and our two children are at school. Our youngest is at the elementary school, while the eldest is at middle school. Assume that the buses won’t be bringing them home following an event of a larger caliber. So now, pre-step one is for one spouse to grab one child at school, while the other spouse grabs the other child at school. This might be altered if one parent is an essential worker, and for those single parents. Your mission is now to get your children to a safe location as quickly as possible. What if you’re at the gym? These are all contingencies that need to be noted. Break it down “Barney style” so that nothing is overlooked, and ensure that all members are knowledgeable in what they are supposed to do.
- Middle school child need to evacuate the building, check in with school staff, and inform them that mom or dad is on the way, and then proceed to the designated rally point at the school. If you have communications with (I.e., cell phone), text them to inform of an expected ETA (estimated time of arrival).
- The elementary school child may have some additional stipulations based on their age. Once they are escorted out of the building, they may remain in close proximity to their teacher, or designated staff. All of these modifications to your plan need to be accounted for, including any additional stipulations necessary by your school’s administration. After-all, we want to make sure the right kid goes with the right parent. In addition, a family password is a good idea, to ensure the right parent gets the child.
Maybe with only a single source of transportation, the additional spouse, or parent, needs to be “picked up” prior to getting any children, so having a plan to include any possible alterations to the standing plan is always good. Ultimately, the key is to get your members together as quickly as possible. Remember, depending on what the disaster was, roads may be damaged, and there may be heavy emergency traffic on the remaining streets and roads, so ensure our plan includes all these possible obstacles.
Once you have made contact with the members, we need to consider any deviations to the standard plan of rendezvous with possible deviations. This means than when picking up a family member, we find them injured, or missing. This deviation may have one parent handling this emergency deviation, while the other grabs the other child and meets at the hospital, or site of the missing party. As a single parent, it may also mean that you depart that area to secure other members, then returning here. There maybe some alternatives, such as other family members who can help keep a plan in motion here. It is critical that we consider our deviations to our standard plan, as this fosters our being adaptable, and therefore more prone to success. We always speak about not being prepared, and these plans are what separates the possibly successful, from the absolutely successful. Possible side note, having kids means you may get several kids needing help when you get yours, so be cognizant of that.
We’ve talked about getting to, and meeting there, but we really need to consider when establishing a rally location. For those of us with children, we have probably established an “outside the home, but close by” rally point for our monthly fire drill. We need to take it to the next level when considering a “disaster rally area”. Obviously we need to consider the type of disaster, but for the most part, we need to consider your home +1. So, let’s cover the two major rally points to consider.
- Home. Home is where the heart is, or so they say. It’s also the location of all our preparedness stores, so it should be a central part of the rally plans. However, before we go plowing in, or dump our children off at home, we need to ask ourselves “how safe is it?” Thinking of building condition, and stability, as well as any potential hazards (I.e., open gas lines, downed power lines, etc.), prior to getting out of the vehicle. We also have to consider the security of the residence, especially if it’s damaged, wildlife and undesirables could be lurking within the interior.
- Home away from home. This really can be anywhere. Either a cabin out in the woods, or an office suite at mom or dads work, really anywhere. The difference should be the amount of preparedness supplies that are immediately available. It could as simplistic as a shed in the back yard, as long as one can alter the ambient temperature, and provide some level of security, it’ll do for now. Having to implement this modification to our survival plan also means that we will have to add the requirement of getting to the stores for a longer-term need to survive. Contained within this section are the other locations that you may find yourself:
- The Gym,
- Either parental offices,
- Grocery store,
- Etc
The big take-away here is that all members are present and/or accounted for. We need to be sure we can put the immediate need of getting everyone together behind us and start stepping forward with our recovery plans. Additionally, we need to ensure that our plans of survival, including the addressing of our “fab five” are initiated wherever we find ourselves when an event occurs. We need to ensure that all members of our household are intimately knowledgeable of the plans, and that there are redundancy plans ready just in case the inevitable occurs. Being prepared at home is only a portion of the overall picture. Each part of the preparedness plans need to be understood clearly so that (particularly children) all members can act appropriately.
As always my friends, I am honored and humbled that you have chosen to spend this time listening to me. I deeply appreciate each and every one of you. Being prepared provides each of us with the confidence for successful survival. We mentioned before, and will certainly say again, that survival is a 90% mental task. By having a confidence and discipline, we can and will survive. Remember to be strong, be safe, and keep your head on a swivel… Peace.
