Keeping food safe during flooding and power outages

Disasters can strike when you least expect them. Knowing how to properly store food ahead of time can help keep you and your family safe from foodborne illnesses.

Two of the most common emergencies that can happen in the summer are flood and power outages, both of which can affect your food and make it unsafe to eat.

Keeping food safe during power outages:

It’s important to keep meat, poultry, fish, eggs and other perishable food at or below 40 degrees and frozen food at or below 0 degrees. But how can you tell what the temperature is if the power is out? The answer is with an appliance thermometer. You should have one for both your refrigerator and freezer.

To keep your foods cooler for longer during a power outage, the U.S. Department of Agriculture advises you to keep refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible. The refrigerator will keep food cold for about four hours and a full freezer will stay cold for about 48 hours, or 24 hours if it is half full. (It’s a good idea to print this information out and save it somewhere you can find it when the power goes out.)

If your refrigerator has been without power for more than four hours, discard any perishable food, USDA says. Never taste the food to test its safety!

Keeping food safe during and after floods:

After a flood, drink only bottled water, as public water supplies may be contaminated. If bottled water is not available, boil tap water for safety. Before using dishes, metal pans or utensils that have touched floodwater, wash them with hot soapy water and sanitize by boiling them in clean water.

Losing food to flooding can be devastating, particularly if you have a lot of it. It’s normal to want to save it. But it’s just not worth risking your health or the health of your loved ones.

After a flood, make sure to throw away any of the following if there is any chance it came in contact with floodwater:

• food in cardboard boxes, paper, foil or cloth;
• spices, seasonings, flour, sugar, grain, coffee and other staples;
• unopened jars with wax cardboard seals, such as mayonnaise and salad dressings;
• all canned foods; and
• wooden cutting boards, plastic utensils, baby bottle nipples and pacifiers.

Remember: When in doubt, throw it out!

For more information, check out our Get Ready food and water safety fact sheet and get more tips on food safety from USDA.

Preparing for hurricane season: New podcast features tips from National Hurricane Center

The 2013 hurricane season is now officially underway. To help Americans be prepared, the Get Ready Report Podcast team spoke with staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Hurricane Center.

According to NOAA, there’s a 70 percent likelihood of 13 to 20 named storms this season, well above the seasonal average of 12. The agency says as many as 11 of those storms could become hurricanes.

Hurricanes can cause three major hazards: strong winds, storm surges and inland flooding, according to James Franklin, branch chief at the National Hurricane Center.

“People need to know what those hazards can do, and then know which of those hazards you’re particularly vulnerable to, depending on where you live,” Franklin says in the new podcast.

Anyone who lives along the East Coast from Texas to Maine is at potential risk. But Franklin notes that hurricanes are not just coastal threats, citing 2012’s Hurricane Sandy as an example of when wind gusts were produced as far as Wisconsin.

Here are some tips to use this hurricane season:

• Become familiar with information and alerts from both the National Hurricane Center and your local weather center. 
• Understand the difference between a hurricane watch and a hurricane warning. During a watch, prepare your home, review your plan for evacuation and listen closely for instructions from local officials. During a warning, finish preparations and immediately leave the threatened area if directed by officials.
• Develop a plan that includes an evacuation strategy and an emergency supply kit, including enough water and nonperishable food to last at least three days, a first-aid kit, a flashlight, a battery-operated radio, extra batteries and medical supplies. 

 For more tips on how to prepare for hurricanes, check out our Get Ready hurricane fact sheet.

This Valentine’s Day, show your loved ones you care — about emergency preparedness!

When you love someone, you want to keep them safe, especially in an emergency situation such as a disaster.

Here at APHA’s Get Ready campaign, we think Valentine’s Day is a great time to think about preparing for emergencies. What’s more romantic than saying you care enough to prepare?

Tornado preparedness e-card from Get Ready.

On that note, we’ve created some free emergency preparedness-themed Valentine’s Day cards for you to send to your loved ones. With topics ranging from flu shots and hand-washing to stockpiling and pet preparedness, we’ve got something for everyone.

The cards are free, and you can email, tweet or post them to Facebook — or even print them out! Just visit our e-card page to see the options and pick your favorites.

What holiday should we celebrate next? Tell us in the comments!

Are you tech ready? Check out our new podcast on digital disaster preparedness!

The Get Ready campaign recently spoke with Amy Donahue, a reference librarian at the Medical College of Wisconsin, about preparing for a disaster digitally.

In our new podcast episode, Donahue gives tips for using technology to help us before, during and after an emergency. She has suggestions for how to make sure technology will work for us when we need it most — things like having extra batteries and having a plan for charging your phone when the power goes out. 

Donahue also explains how librarians can help when disaster strikes.

“We can help people identify good resources for disaster information. We can help them find new sources if they don’t know where to start. And then we can also help work with community partners,” to help people share information before, during and after an emergency, she says.

In addition to preparing your tech gear, Donahue reminds us that “nothing beats having the kit, having the plan, making sure all your technology will help you and not hinder you before an emergency ever strikes.”

You can listen to the newest Get Ready podcast and read the transcript here, or subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes!

Is there a specific topic you think we should cover in our next podcast? Let us know in the comments!

Give the gift of preparedness this year

Have someone on your holiday gift list who is hard to shop for? Why not give the gift of emergency preparedness? Here are some simple, inexpensive ways to show you care and help your loved ones be more prepared in the new year:

1. Flashlight with extra batteries: When the power goes out, how many of us have gone rummaging in the dark looking for that flashlight? Or we find the flashlight, only to realize it doesn’t have fresh batteries? It might sound like a boring gift, but flashlights and batteries always come in handy. Consider a magnetic flashlight that will stick on the fridge, or a headband flashlight so that giftees can keep their hands free during an emergency.
2. First-aid kit: First-aid kits are always great to have around, but can be especially useful during a disaster or storm, when emergency responders can be delayed. You can purchase pre-made kits at most stores, or take a look at our tips for creating a useful first-aid kit and make your own! Plus, if you decide to make your own kit, you can personalize it. For a new mom, for example, include baby-related items. 
3. All-weather radio: Weather or emergency radios are battery- or hand crank-powered. They are specially designed to receive the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Weather Radio All Hazards broadcast, which is a 24/7 broadcast from the National Weather Service with official warnings, forecasts and emergency alerts. New versions include USB ports so you can charge your mobile phone when the power goes out!
4. Car emergency kit: For your favorite someone who loves to get behind the wheel, you can help them be safe on the road by gifting items for a car emergency kit. Items like a first-aid kit, car battery charger or jumper cables, and a flashlight are all important things to have in a vehicle. If the person lives in an area at risk for cold temperatures or winter storms, consider adding an extra blanket, a set of warm clothes and an ice scraper. 
5. Family emergency plan: Sometimes the best gifts are ones that money can’t buy. While you gather with family and close friends over the holiday season, set aside time to create an emergency plan with your family. Think about the possible disasters that could happen near your home and discuss what your family can do to stay safe. Make a list of important phone numbers, including someone who lives out of the area in case local phone lines are busy. Take a look at a map and pick both a local and out-of-town meeting place where you can safely meet your loved ones in the event of an emergency. Once you’ve got everything planned out, be sure to write it down and give everyone a copy. Ready.gov has a blank family preparedness plan that you can fill out, or create your own!

That’s our short list of preparedness gift ideas. Are you helping someone get ready this year with a holiday gift? What’s on your wish list? What was the best preparedness gift you have ever received?  Let us know in the comments!  Have a happy and safe holiday season.

Get Ready has new fact sheets for people living with disabilities

Have you ever used our cool, super helpful and totally free Get Ready fact sheets?

We’re excited to tell you that we just added five new fact sheets to our huge list of topics. These new fact sheets focus on helping people living with disabilities think about and prepare for disasters. You can check them out on our disability preparedness page.

We have a general fact sheet with preparedness tips for people with disabilities, as well as fact sheets for people with hearing, mobility, vision and cognitive disabilities. These fact sheets are available in English and in Spanish on our disabilities page. You can add your own logo with our easy-to-use instructions.

Plus, to make the fact sheets accessible to anyone who needs them, we’ve made audio and American Sign Language video recordings of the fact sheets. Once you’ve accessed the fact sheets, check out the podcasts we created on disabilities and preparedness as well.

We hope these new fact sheets help you and the people you care about get ready for any emergency. Let us know what you think in the comments!

Check out our newest Get Ready fact sheet: Disaster preparedness on the road

Do you know what to do if you’re in a car when a tornado hits? What about an earthquake? (Hint: Don’t park under a bridge or overpass!)

April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month, so we thought it would be a great time to mention our newest fact sheet about safe driving during disasters. It’s full of information to get you ready to drive in any type of emergency. We’ve also included tips about what to keep in your car so that you’re prepared for disasters even when you’re on the go. Click on the fact sheet below to download a PDF in English. You can get a Spanish version of the fact sheet and check out all of other topics on our Get the facts page.

After you check out our fact sheet, you should check to see if your town has an evacuation route. And while you’re at it, sit down with family and loved ones to plan a place to meet once everyone gets away from the disaster area safely.

Being prepared for emergencies on the road will help you remain calm, drive safely and arrive alive.

Volunteering during a disaster: Stories from the American Red Cross

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to volunteer during an emergency? Perhaps a natural disaster has affected your community, and you didn’t know how to help. In honor of Red Cross Month, APHA’s Get Ready campaign recently talked with some American Red Cross volunteers to get the scoop on what it’s like to volunteer during an emergency.

The American Red Cross responds to more than 70,000 disasters and emergencies every year, including home fires, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes and other human-made or natural disasters. The organization provides shelter, food and health services to those affected by disasters.

Because they respond to so many disasters, Red Cross volunteers have the opportunity to help with relief efforts for many different kinds of emergencies. For example, Red Cross volunteer Chris McNeil, of Bel Air, Md., has helped with flood recovery efforts in Vermont and tornado cleanup in Maryland. He described working on a “mud-out crew” — removing water, mud and damaged possessions from flooded houses — after Lake Champlain flooded in Vermont in 2011.

Red Cross volunteer looks onto
a flooding home in Vicksburg, MS.
Photo: Talia Frenkel/American Red Cross 

“We arrived at a house with the absolute worst amount of damage we had seen all week,” McNeil told the Get Ready campaign. “When we finished, the basement had been completely emptied and sanitized. The husband asked us how we would be paid. When we told him we were all volunteers, he broke down in tears.”

McNeil is a retiree who made volunteering with the Red Cross one of his post-retirement goals. His story is a great example that you don’t need to have any special training in emergency response to be a volunteer.

“There will be a useful job for you, regardless of your abilities or age,” McNeil said. “You just have to be willing.”

People who have specialized skills are encouraged to volunteer as well. The Get Ready campaign also spoke with Elena Acs, a Red Cross volunteer from Clarksville, Md., who works with her local Red Cross Disaster Mental Health Team. Acs, a trained clinical social worker, said she is on hand immediately after a fire to “look out for anyone who seems to be having a harder time than can be expected and may need some intervention.” Acs recalled one house fire where a resident also lost the family pet.

“What made this memorable was to be able to give assistance and support immediately at the time of the death of the pet and give resources for further help,” Acs said.

Like McNeil, Acs encourages people of all backgrounds to consider volunteering with the Red Cross.

“It is important to have a range of types of team members from nursing to client caseworkers to mental health professionals so that we are able to respond to a wide range of needs that can occur in a disaster,” she said.

Red Cross volunteers may serve locally in their communities, like Acs, but volunteers who are able could also be asked to help with recovery efforts during large-scale disasters across the country. Rich Scanlan, a retiree from Towson, Md., said he began volunteering for the Red Cross in 2006 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Scanlan responded to an ad he heard on the radio seeking volunteers, received training and was sent to work in a shelter in Biloxi, Miss. At the shelter, Scanlan reported that he was somewhat surprised to find himself cleaning out urinals every morning. He did this and other basic tasks, knowing that they were “critical to the job that the Red Cross does.”

Despite the bathroom duty, Scanlan was hooked. He continued to volunteer with his local Red Cross Disaster Action Team and in the past six years he’s helped with hurricanes in Texas, wildfires in California, floods in Pennsylvania and many other disasters around the country. While still a volunteer, he’s been promoted to the manager level in the Red Cross, which means that he’s now called to oversee advanced disaster response efforts. Last summer, soon after he was promoted as a manager, he ran operations for 40 shelters for the Red Cross in the aftermath of the tornadoes in Alabama. Scanlan said the sometimes 12- to 24-hour workdays were “the hardest I ever worked in my life” but that he always feels better later.

The American Red Cross
responds to an EF4 tornado, the most
powerful rating with winds of 175 mph,
which destroyed virtually entire
neighborhoods in Henryville, Indiana.
Courtesy Daniel Cima/American Red Cross 

When asked if he has advice for anyone considering becoming a volunteer for the Red Cross or a similar organization, Scanlan says, “Get up off the couch and volunteer. We always need people.”

These are stories from just three of thousands of volunteers who respond to disasters every day with the American Red Cross. Volunteering is a great way to get ready for an emergency. The training you receive can help you prepare to help others — and yourself — should a disaster strike your community. As Scanlan told us, no matter what happens next, “I’m ready, I’ve got a bag packed.”

To volunteer for the Red Cross, visit the organization’s website.

Getting ready for a disaster when you’re living with a disability

Here at the Get Ready Blog, we spend a lot of time talking about emergency preparedness and providing general tips to help everyone get ready in case of a disaster. However, being prepared often requires extra planning if you are living with a disability. To learn more, we recently interviewed Danielle Bailey, MPH, a research assistant for the Oregon Office on Disability and Health for the latest episode of our Get Ready Report podcast series.

Bailey says that everyone should take basic steps to get ready for an emergency: identifying the disasters that could happen in your area, creating evacuation and communication plans and putting together an emergency kit. But achieving this level of preparedness, says Bailey, “varies greatly for a person with a disability because of the level of attention and planning required to address their specific needs.”

If you are living with a disability, Bailey says the best practice is to sit down with someone who knows you well — a spouse, friend, family member or caregiver — and decide together “what activities of living you are able to do for yourself and what help you may need before, during and after an emergency.”

Bailey also recommends being very specific when putting together emergency kits. For example, “individuals who can only drink out of a straw, include straws in your bag, or if you use a manual wheelchair you may want to think about having some type of hand protection, such as leather gloves.”
“Think about backup batteries for hearing aids, extra canes and, of course, you need to have a plan around your medication and ensure you have copies of current prescriptions,” Bailey says.

For a general checklist about preparing an emergency stockpile, read the Get Ready checklist (PDF) It’s a good starting place for everyone!

For more great information about getting ready for a disaster when you’re living with a disability, listen to the full episode of our newest Get Ready Report. You can also read the transcript of our interview with Bailey.

Workplace preparedness: What businesses can do to prepare for disasters

Did you know that 65 percent of businesses in the United States don’t have a plan for disaster preparedness? That’s what we learned last month when we sat down with Bob Boyd to record the latest episode of our Get Ready Report podcast.

Boyd is president and CEO of Agility Recovery, a Charlotte, N.C., company that develops disaster preparedness plans for the workplace. He says that typically only the largest companies he’s worked with have developed plans to protect their employees, customers and their financial future in case of emergencies — but he believes that all businesses need to plan for disasters. Boyd says that a workplace preparedness plan will help companies “overcome any kind of interruption, whether that’s a hurricane or a burst pipe,” as he explains in our interview.

Even owners and employees of smaller businesses can take steps to be prepared for emergencies — and, Boyd says, these steps won’t cost a lot of money or time. In fact, he provided Get Ready Report listeners with five quick steps “that any business can take” to be prepared.

And the best part is, these steps are free — and so is our podcast! So, what are you waiting for? Listen to our Get Ready Report episode right now!

You can also read the full transcript of our interview with Boyd or the shortened Q&A version.

And don’t forget to check out all of our great podcasts!