Disaster Preparedness Books

There are many levels of need in the event of a disaster. We have pets, disabled neighbors, young children, wildlife, businesses, farm animals, gardens, and property to consider. First aid, food, transportation, communication, spiritual survival also need to be considered for each of these. Rebuilding and restoration plans. Disasters aren't called that because they are easy. A lot goes into preparing for disasters. Once your disaster kits are ready, though, and you've drilled in what to do when a disaster strikes, it only requires a small amount of time to keep current, to update supplies within the kits, and to refresh your skills.

Fortunately, each region comes with its own specific natural dsasters. In Oklahoma, we're not likely to have volcanoes or tsunamis or hurricanes destroying us. All things considered, the disasters facing Oklahoma are relatively benign compared to many others. We have tornadoes, and an outstanding weather-tracking and warning system that helps reduce damage. We have floods - another disaster for which we often have plenty of advance warning. We have small earthquakes that don't require anything more than the occassional home inspection to be sure the house hasn't settled from a small quake and the foundation remains sound. We have ice storms that last only a few days - a week at the most. We have weeks-long heat waves where the temperature exceeds 100º. Our biggest and worst disasters are power outages which can go on for days, even weeks, and in a few rare cases, months.

If you live in other regions besides Oklahoma, you face different natural disasters.

We've already survived a terrorist style attack in the Murrah Bombing, and we learned a lot from this. We have the usual people-driven disasters, mostly urban and suburban: robberies, muggings, rapes, auto crashes, abuses, murders, fires, grain explosions, fire-cracker incidents, identity thefts, illegal drugs, gang fighting, and being fired/laid off from our jobs.

The rarest disasters are war-driven - bombings, miitary strikes, strafings, bioterrorist attacks, street-fighting, and military occupation.

Preparation for many of these cross-over to other disaster areas, so it's not as complicated to be prepared as it first seems.

LINKS

When Disaster Strikes

VOAD Organizational Manual

Organizing Protocols for Community Disaster Recovery

Paradigm Shift

Department of Defense

Volunteers in Technical Assisstance

Disaster News Network

International Association of Emergency Managers

SBA Disaster Recovery

Alliance of Information and Referral Systems

Association of Volunteer Emergency Response Teams

Craft Emergency Relief Fund

Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response Association

Disaster Resources

Institute for Business and Home Safety

InterAction

Disaster Preparedness for Veterinary Practices

72 Hours.Org

Disaster Preparedness for Libraries and Archives

Disaster Preparedness for People with Disabilities

Disaster Preparedness for Horses

Prepare.Org

Ready.Gov