1. Emergency Preparedness:
Planning & Communication
Community Emergency
Preparedness Fair
Nolensville, TN
Saturday, April 13, 2013

2. Why Emergency Preparedness?
• Disaster can strike quickly and without
warning
• You might be forced to evacuate
• Or, you might be confined to your home for a
long period of time
• Your basic services (water, gas, power, phones)
might be cut off

3. Why Emergency Preparedness?
• It might take a while for you to get help from
emergency officials and relief workers – they
can’t reach everyone right away.
• Bottom line: you might find yourself in a
situation where you will need to take care of
yourselves until help arrives

4. Emergency Preparedness
• The Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) has an excellent website with great
resources: www.ready.gov
• FEMA advice follows this framework:
1. Be Informed
2. Make a Plan
3. Get a Kit
4. Get Involved

5. 1. Be Informed
• … about what might happen
• Learn about potential threats in your area or
circumstances
– Natural disasters
– Man-made emergencies
• Learn about your community’s warning systems
& evacuation plans
• Know what to do before, during and after an
emergency

6. 2. Make a Plan
• … for what you will do in an emergency
• Develop a family communication plan:
– Your family may not be together when disaster hits
– Plan how you will contact each other and what you will
do in different situations
– Plan for each family member to contact the same friend
or relative to coordinate plans during an emergency
• Include contingencies for when you need to
shelter-in-place (stay) and evacuate (go)

7. 3. Get a Kit
• … of emergency supplies
• Be prepared to make it on your own for at least
72 hours (3 days)
• Consider two kits:
– One for what you will need to stay where you are
– One lightweight to take with you if you have to go
• Include water – one gallon per person per day
• Non perishable food that’s easy to
store/prepare

8. 4. Get Involved
• After preparing yourself and your family, take the
next step and get involved in preparing your
community.
• Volunteer with your local emergency
management agency
– Contact Williamson County Emergency Management
Agency Director Mac Purdy if interested at
macP@williamson-tn.org or 615-790-5752
• Sponsor an emergency preparedness fair!!

9. How does our congregation
communicate during an emergency?
• We use an existing process/network called Home
Teaching and Visiting Teaching
– We try to visit each member of our congregation at
home at least once a month (whether there is an
emergency or not) to provide service and share a
message
• Home Teaching: men visit families & single members
• Visiting Teaching: women visit female members
• Overlap helps improve chance that we’ll see
everyone

10. Home Teaching & Visiting Teaching
• Approximately 180 families/single members are part of
the network
• They are visited by about 110 sets of congregation
members
– Each set (or companionship) consists of two members
• Home teachers and visiting teachers assist members as
needed
• They report concerns or needs on a monthly basis to
“District leaders,” who report up through the
organization to the Bishop, who is the
congregation’s lay minister

11. Here’s how our congregation
communicates during an emergency
• In the event of an emergency, we use the
same Home/Visiting Teaching network to
contact all of our members to:
– Make sure they are okay
– Assess their needs
– Provide any necessary assistance
– Assess available resources to assist others

13. Examples of how this process works:
• During the floods of May 2010 we were able to
quickly determine the status of our members and
provide timely assistance to those in need
• We organized a team of volunteers to go down to
Cordova, Alabama in April 2011 to help with the
relief and cleanup after the tornado
• During the gas shortage in 2008, we stayed
informed of people’s needs and were able to
coordinate assistance
• For personal and family emergencies, such as
hospitalizations, moves and unemployment

14. Emergency Preparedness
• The time to get ready for an emergency is now
– before it happens
• There are a lot of great resources available to
help you create a plan
• Your family will thank you!
• You won’t regret it!!