Establish Emergency Contacts and Meeting Places

  Two of the most important steps you can take now to prepare your family if a disaster were to occur is to establish a set of safe meeting places and an emergency family contact number outside of your city or state.
  First, it's important that if there is a fire or earthquake at night that you have a safe place to meet outside of your home. This will immediately make you aware of missing family members. If everyone is just told to exit the home, you may not know if your son went to the neighbors house, or is standing in the back yard behind the shed. This can cause panic in an already tense and stressful situation. Before you take another step make sure everyone in your family knows where to meet if a disaster were to hit.
  Next, it is important to have a meeting place outside of your neighborhood, should you not be able to meet at your house. Remember if an earthquake, tornado or severe storm were to hit, cell phone communication may not be available. If your neighborhood is inaccessible, your family should have a second meeting place. This is usually a store or mall parking lot. Remember if you can not be reached by phone, and are not allowed near your home, you will need to assume everyone in your family will be headed to your second meeting place.
  Lastly, it is important to remember that while family members outside of your town may be concerned and unable to get calls in due to overload, calls going out will be more reliable. In the event of a disaster, your family should have a contact member outside of your area. Parents can call the contact family member and let them know where they are. Kids can call the contact family member to check in and hear where their mom and dad are waiting. While communication may be difficult, having one family member outside of the disaster zone to direct family members to will be helpful in keeping all the lines open.

• Make sure all family members know your meeting location outside of your house. Practice!
• Have a secondary meeting place outside of your neighborhood. Local store parking lot. Show everyone the exact location to meet.
• Have a family contact member outside of your town, preferably your state that everyone will check in with no matter what the circumstances in case of a local disaster.