An emergency can occur on a personal, household or neighborhood level. A disaster can be defined as a widespread event that exceeds the capacity of officials to effectively respond. By preparing for a disaster, we are also made ready to respond to an emergency.
You’re on Your Own (YOYO)
In times of crises, our rural community is supported by a dedicated public safety infrastructure that responds swiftly to emergencies. However, disasters—particularly those affecting nearby urban areas—present unique challenges that exceed local capacity and external aid may be delayed or inaccessible for an extended amount of time. This underscores the critical need for self-reliance.
Residents must be prepared to sustain themselves and their families for varying durations: at least three days for winter storms or power outages, two weeks for significant storms or minor earthquakes, and up to 30 days for a catastrophic event like a major earthquake.
To begin, we suggest using the Think, Plan, Do, Repeat guide from the Jefferson County Department of Emergency Management (DEM) for local emergency preparedness tips for individuals and households.
We’re On Our Own Together (WOOOT)
While each one of us continues to be responsible for being personally prepared, you are not really “on your own” if you make these preparations with your neighbors. That is where we can help! There are currently over 100 neighborhoods organizing here in Jefferson County. While that seems like a lot, there are a lot of neighborhoods yet to be covered.
Click here to learn if you live in an NPREP trained neighborhood.
We help new neighborhood organizers get started and provide ongoing support. Our toolkit includes the Neighbors Helping Neighbors program that provides a step-by-step guide to help neighborhoods prepare for supporting each other when a disaster occurs. The Hub Start-up Manual helps two or more people to prepare for providing support to neighbors and visitors not previously involved in organization efforts. Both documents can be found on DEM’s Preparedness and Planning site.
We can also help coordinate neighborhood training on a wide variety of individual and household preparedness topics offered by DEM and their other community-based partners.
Organized neighborhoods and Hubs are included in the Jefferson County and Port Townsend Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan. As such, neighborhood organizers are given the opportunity to attend informational and training meetings where relationships can be forged with representatives from all our public agencies who will be actively involved in disaster response and recovery. Whether it is getting to better know your neighbors or meeting your agency personnel, the wisdom in this favorite quote from our former Emergency Management Director, Bob Hamlin, rings true: “The ability to deal with a crisis is largely dependent on the structures and relationships developed before the emergency.”
Contact us at NPREP@L2020.org to find out if your neighborhood is organized or if you want to get started. We’re here to help!
Stay up to date: The bit.ly/yoyo2wooot link takes you to a continuously updated list of emergency and disaster preparedness resources – including an extensive video library of related local presentations.
Please share the bit.ly/yoyo2wooot link with your local family, friends and neighbors.
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