What’s Around You Could Change Everything

Today we are going to be talking about driving around. I've mentioned this before, but taking the time to drive around your home or place of business to determine potential hazards, particularly those like what is happening in Garden Grove, where a chemical disaster caused immediate shutdown and evacuation of, well, everything. For my wife and I, and where we live, we did try this out, as recommended to us in the recent BICEPP program, Staying Open for Business After Disaster. It was suggested everyone just take a drive and see what's out there that could potentially impact operations. We've got two freeways, a train crossing, and several tanks of I don't know what within a mile of our home. What that has done is encourage us to prepare even more thoroughly, and that preparedness looks like this: 1-A go-bag. This contains 3 days of food and water, and we've got this pretty well covered. We used the Garden Grove situation as motivation to dig through our kits, which are on wheels because they are heavy and we are old. When would we use these? When we need to get out of here and make our way to a shelter. 2-A stay-bag. This is much more comprehensive assortment of provisions and would be used in case we need to shelter in place for an extended period of time. Things like solar ovens, privacy shelters and the like are included in our cache of provisions, to which we are continually tweaking. 3-A run like heck bag. This is new and was motivated by recent events. What will we take with us if we are told to get out and get out now? These need to be lean, mean, and complete with essentials if we just need to get away from this spot fast. N-95 masks don't do any good in some situations. The fact that ANY residential district could be instantly impacted by ANY business scares me. Plus, think about it. What if you owned, say, a donut shop a block away from the tank disaster? You need to close and get out now, and you cannot come back for more than a week. What then? It all starts with a plan. The experts at BICEPP can help you with that. It's only $50 a year to sign up, and I encourage you to do so today. Get a plan, work a plan. And it all starts with knowing the hazards that can really mess up your world.