September is National Preparedness Month and Tooele County Emergency Management wants residents to better understand what they can do to remain safe.
Bucky Whitehouse, the county’s emergency services director, said households need to create, then routinely practice, plans for a natural disaster like an earthquake or wildfire.
“People will talk about the emergency plan, they’ll write it down,” he said. “They’ll talk about it once, but they don’t ever go back and revisit it.”
Whitehouse said residents should practice their plans to ensure that everyone knows what they should do in case of an emergency, including how they’ll get in touch with each other and where they should meet.
“Many times people think that, for example, their spouse or children know what to do in an emergency when they truly don’t,” Whitehouse said.
The need for an emergency plan can be especially important with Tooele County residents who work in Salt Lake County, Whitehouse said.
“With the way traffic is, moving in and out of the valley, their significant other may not be able to get to the Tooele area for hours to days,” he said.
A suggestion Whitehouse had for families is to have a mutual out-of-state contact that everyone can check in with should an emergency happen. Cell towers can be overwhelmed by the volume of calls or damaged in the disaster.
“What we find many times is long-distance calls are more easily made than local calls,” Whitehouse said. “We also find, through recent events, that texting technology seems to last longer than conventional phone systems do.”
Tooele County Emergency Management has a family emergency preparedness guide that’s available at its headquarters at 15 East 100 South in Tooele or on the department’s website at tcem.org. The guide gives advice on creating a plan and gives advice on the amount of supplies that a household should have on hand in case of a disaster.
In most cases, residents should shelter in place unless their home is threatened or they’ve been asked to evacuate, Whitehouse said. Homeowners should ensure there is enough food and water in the house for several days.
Having supplies in your home serves as a bridge until emergency responders can provide additional food and water for those in the disaster area, Whitehouse said.
“The response will be coming, it just may not come as fast as what the citizens may like it to be,” he said.
Whitehouse suggested storing one gallon of water per person in the household, including pets, for a two-week supply. People should also store the water in two locations in case one becomes inaccessible, he said.
Food should be non-perishable and something that people enjoy eating, especially if it’s a food that may reduce stress in an emergency, Whitehouse said. Anything you might donate to a food bank qualifies as good food for emergency preparedness but must be rotated through so it doesn’t expire.
If possible, request a three-month advance of any medications you may need so you’ll be prepared if medical supply distribution is disrupted, Whitehouse said.
In case of a widespread disaster, emergency shelters organized by the Red Cross will be housed in schools, places of worship and community centers throughout Tooele County, Whitehouse said. While the Red Cross-certified shelters don’t accept pets beside service animals, pets can be sheltered nearby, he said.
“During the two evacuations [for wildfires last year], we had cases where people wouldn’t leave the requested evacuation area unless they could take their pets with them,” Whitehouse said.
Andy Tanner, communications technician for TCEM, said residents need to avoid flooding dispatch with calls unless they are in need. In many cases, the calls are made to simply alert dispatch of the disaster, which could slow down the response for people injured or displaced and in need of help, he said.
Another piece of advice Tanner had is to call TCEM after a disaster if you’d like to make a donation. People were eager to offer help after the Stockton fire last summer, but the response is better organized if TCEM can work as the collection agency, he said.
“We have a phone number set up and they would bring it to us and we’d download it,” Tanner said of donations following the wildfire.
Most importantly, however, is taking personal responsibility for your preparedness in case of a major disaster, Whitehouse said.
“When we say prepare, we want you to start at home,” he said.
TCEM will hold a series of open houses on Sept. 28, 29, and 30 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. to allow residents to tour the TCEM facility and learn more about being prepared for an emergency.