Preperation: Are you ready?

Right now, wherever you're sitting, what if someone starts pounding on your door. Before you can reach the door, however, the pounding abruptly cuts off, and when you open up, you see someone- maybe you know them, maybe you don't- collapsed in a heap in front of you. Would you know what to do? What would you do? Poke them with a pointy stick? Point and laugh? Get on the ground and start shaking them? Maybe call 911 and try to work through your panic to have the dispatcher walk you through the emergency? How about tell someone to call 911, kneel down beside them, check to see if they're at all responsive- which they're not-, position their head, check their airway to see if you can identify any foreign objects inside- you don't-, give two rescue breaths, check their pulse, and since they don't have one, you deliver 30 chest compressions at a rapid pace. After three cycles of CPR, the person you told to dial 911 tells you that the dispatcher has EMS en route, has asked you to continue CPR until EMS arrives, and is now going to stand outside to help flag down the ambulance.

Now, let's consider where you're at. Is your area especially prone to dry, windy weather and high fire-risk situations? Do you live in a region that regularly has tornadoes or heavy thunderstorms, or are you subject to the possibility of hurricanes? What about earthquakes? Have you ever considered how to manage a man-made threat such as a break-in, a riot, or if the political climate permits the possibility- war? If you've ever gone driving through a region you're unfamiliar with or gone camping, did you go with a plan or with a kit? Would you prefer to awaken in the middle of the night to the sound of tornado sirens and not know where to go or what to do- OR would you rather grab your disaster kit- handily packed in a regular briefcase or something else easily portable- grab your pets/family, and head to your pre-designated safe room (which can be as simple as a bathroom) with time to spare?

The last alternative in both cases certainly sounds more appealing to me, as I hope it does to you, for a number of reasons: First, because you've got a plan to follow, you're not going to lose your mind in the face of such a stressful event. Second, because you're not busy going coocoo for cocoa puffs, you can act swiftly and precisely to resolve or manage the problem with your plan. Third, because you planned ahead, you're much better equipped with the right things- be it knowledge, experience, or actual equipment- than others who didn't to handle the situation at hand, and thus stand a better chance of success than most other people.

Here's some simple steps that anyone can and should take:

- If you're not CPR certified, get certified. If you're certified, keep it up-to-date, since the way CPR is preformed is constantly evolving based on the latest clinical evidence. You can usually find classes at a local technical college, at a local medical center (such as a hospital), and even at your local fire department, ambulance service, police department, or public center. Classes are just a total of 8 hours (two 4 hour sessions or all-at-once, usually) long, and it only costs $5.00 to get your AHA certification. Also, Wii owners should keep an eye out for a downloadable program from the American Heart Association which will use the Wii to teach CPR- the best part is that they're working at making it available for free once it actually is released. CPR is a great skill that everyone should know, and early delivery of CPR to someone who needs it is a critical link in the chain to ensure patient survival.

- Learn the potential disasters in your area- know if you might be subject to blizzards, earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, flash floods, avalanches, landslides, even volcanoes and tsunamis- by researching your area's history and then researching the individual disasters and how they can pose problems to you. Then, you should formulate, understand, and (at least once a year) practice those plans with everyone at your household or involved in your family. Don't forget to include pets in the plan too, because I'll bet that you won't forget them when the problem actually occurs. Some plans everyone should know by heart are: House fire, medical emergency (so you know how to manage it- this can be preparing for a family member with failing health, knowing what to do if someone rolls down the stairs, or how to respond if someone falls in the pool. You should also have a plan on how to communicate what hospital EMS is taking them to and how to split up- because you will, I guarantee it- and how to rendezvous with each other later), local disasters (that is, those disasters specific to your area), break-in (if you have a firearm, you can run a scenario in which you utilize it based off of the training you have with it, but you must run a worst-case practice/plan in which you cannot access the weapon), and generalized evacuation.

- A great way to prepare for a disaster or emergency is to make a disaster kit. The kit needs to be relatively small and definitely needs to be portable, though you can make a cache in a designated safe room if you feel like it after you've made your kit. Some good ideas for a disaster kit would be a briefcase, a backpack, or framed hiking pack. This kit should include: A good flashlight (preferably something durable, such as a mag-lite) with spare bulbs and batteries (which should be replaced every year), a glowstick or two, a small or medium-sized medkit, whatever personal supplies you might need, at least a case or a 2 liter bottle of purified water (consider a canteen and some iodine water purification tablets, especially if the pack you're looking at won't fit any water bottles), some energy bars, peanut butter (some of the most nutrient-rich and calorie dense foods on the planet), and/or trail mix for food. Most important of all, you should pack a sturdy multi-tool or fixed blade knife (because I've found 95% of all folding knives I've encountered to be flimsy when faced with a real trial or of completely poor quality. Also, fixed blade doesn't mean machete, you can get a small, reliable fixed blade knife)- and keep in mind that this is one of those areas where the higher price for a more quality tool will almost certainly be worth it, though I would always recommend jotting down the names of whatever models catch your eye and then researching them for reviews on the internet. Finally, you should set aside $100-$200 in cash, if you can, in various sets (ex: $20 in 1's, $20 in 5's, $20 in 10's, $40 in 20's). The reason for this is that post-disaster, the power may be out for quite some time, meaning that cards are useless and ATM's are non-functional, so the only monetary resource you have is the cash on your person until power is restored. It may be a very good idea to make one of these cases for each adult family member, though in a scrape, a single kit will usually get you by much better than no kit at all.

-A Safe Room is a room- preferably on the ground floor or in the basement and as close to the center of your house as possible, with a sturdy door on a solid frame- that you and your family have designated to be the room to move to in the event of an emergency such as someone attempting to break in, a tornado warning in your area, or other similar problems. While the safe room can be just a regular old room the rest of the time, it should be able to give you the shelter you need the moment you need it. It should contain a much better first-aid kit or medical supply than your portable disaster kit- you may consider keeping a small medicine cabinet and a small supply of your prescription medicines (depending on how often you need to take them) in the room. Also, you might try keeping several gallons of purified water in the room at any given time, as well as a stash of food. A great idea, if you can afford it, is to keep a pre-paid cell phone on charge in this room at all times. This gives you guaranteed access to 911, even if the landlines are down, and even if your pre-paid phone doesn't have any minutes on it- though you should always try and have a few minutes on there and test the phone regularly, just to be safe. Your safe room should also be very secure- having a very sturdy door with at least a deadbolt on it and with the hinges on the inside of the door.

- A Home First-Aid Kit should, at minimum, include whatever you need to cover your personal needs, several packages of surgical dressings, a box of 4x4 gauze dressings, a box of 2x2 gauze dressings, some ACE bandages, some gauze roller dressings and bandages, a triangle bandage (can be substituted with a bandana), a box of benadryl (in case of insect bites or stings without life-threatening reactions to it), a bottle of ibuprofin (useful for management of pain and swelling), a bottle of Aspirin (useful for pain management and for taking immediately after you or someone in your family has started experiencing the classic crushing chest pain that is indicative of a heart attack- if you take the aspirin, keep the bottle with you so the medic knows how many milligrams of aspirin you took once EMS arrives), and at least a few cold and warm packs for the easing of soft-tissue injuries. Band-aids are mostly useless, so don't get too concerned about buying them except to keep a box around for the small stuff or for your kids. If you buy a first aid kit from wal-mart, it's bound to have band-aids instead of gauze-- trust me, can the band-aids, add the gauze. As far as antibiotic ointments go, I'd prefer if their use was limited or avoided altogether, as manual washing is still the best way to clean most small wounds. However, the ointments may prove useful in the management of smaller burns or especially dirty cuts (though you should definitely take the opportunity to get these evaluated by a medical professional, and ANY animal bites need to result in the bite getting cleaned right away if it's not torn wide open and should receive immediate evaluation from a medical professional).

- Training should also be a very important part of this whole equation. Anyone can quickly, cheaply, and easily receive CPR training. Any parents, future parents, or guardians should take whatever chance they can to take an NREMT First Responder course- which trains you on the basics of first aid for infants, children, and adults. While anyone, given the opportunity, should take a first responder course, it's far more imperative that parents get this training than most other family members. If you own a firearm for self-defense, you should take whatever safety and specialized classes unique to your type of firearm that you can, and keep the weapon stored in a gun safe that is secured in place and locked at all times. After all, the majority of 'black-market' weapons are actually those stolen out of perfectly legal gun-owner's homes, since most of the burglers that are actually dumb enough to break in while people are home have been shot to death already. Again, while having plans for escaping a house fire is a valuable thing, it's meaningless unless you actually practice.

- Using your local resources can help you out a lot. It's not at all unusual for parents or schools to schedule 'field trips' or 'show and tells' with Fire Department, EMS, and Law Enforcement agencies in their area. Because children are usually fascinated by these personell and the equipment they work with, it can be both educational and entertaining for both you and your child. Some services will even have special educational supplies- such as coloring books unique to their area's fire service- they can give you or your child. Just don't show up uninvited, since that means that they'll be unprepared to set aside time and resources for you and your family, and may even turn you away, undoubtedly a bad experience for both parties. Also, the more you can get other families with children or your child's classmates and their family to agree to join you, the more willing these services will be to set aside time and resources to really strut their stuff for you.