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APHA has these tips on how you can use that bonus hour to become prepared:
* Check your stockpile and make sure that your emergency supplies, such as food, water and batteries, are still good. If you don’t have a stockpile, take some time to create one.
* Re-familiarize yourself and your family with your community’s emergency preparedness plan, including evacuation routes, emergency shelters and the location of food banks.
* Update your family communication plan, which will spell out how you will get in touch with one another during an emergency.
* Gather extra supplies for your pets, which need their own stockpile of food and water.
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* Collect your medications together in one place, and make sure you have enough supplies in case you or your family have to stay home with the flu for a few days.
The Get Ready: Set Your Clocks, Check Your Stocks Web site has a wealth of free information that can help you with your emergency supplies, including easy-to-understand fact sheets on what to put in your stockpile (PDF), budget stockpiling (PDF), stockpiling for pets (PDF), a stockpiling checklist (PDF) and the supplies you need to have on hand for a cold or the flu (PDF).
Still not convinced? Read what the University of Minnesota had to say about Set Your Clocks, Check Your Stocks on its Promising Practices: Pandemic Preparedness Tools Web site and see what the buzz is about.