Preparedness is not just for People

May 8^th is National Animal Disaster Preparedness Day. According to the American Pet Products Association 2011-2012 National Pet Owners Survey, thirty-nine percent of U.S. households own at least one dog and thirty-three percent own at least one cat. That translates to approximately 78.2 million owned and 86.4 million owned cats in the United States.

Emergency situations that require any type of evacuation require advance preparation by pet owners. It is important to note that not all Red Cross disaster shelters accept pets, so it is imperative to determine where to bring pets ahead of time. Most boarding kennels, veterinarians and animal shelters will need medical records to make sure all vaccinations are current. The ASPCA recommends keeping a copy of all medical records along with a photo of the pet in a “pet survival” kit.

Microchip identification is one of the best ways to ensure that a pet will be reunited with its owner. Microchip registrations should include at least one emergency number of a friend or relative who resides out of the immediate area.

A Rescue Alert Sticker can be placed in a front window of the home to let rescue workers and others know that pets are inside. The sticker should include the types and number of pets inside and veterinarian contact information.

Read more:

http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/disaster-preparedness/

http://www.humanesociety.org/about/departments/disaster_preparedness.html

Customer Spotlight: Warren County, NJ

Warren County is located in northwestern New Jersey and encompasses 22 municipalities consisting of townships, cities, towns, boroughs and villages in a 363 square mile area. The Rapid Notify system enables the Warren County Office of Emergency Management to contact over 110,000 area residents in the event of an extreme emergency situation.

Warren County teamed up with the local Merrill Creek Dam to purchase the system with funding in part provided by Federal Homeland Security grants.

The County primarily uses the Rapid Notify system in situations such as heavy snowstorms and flooding.  The system proved to be valuable in 2011 with Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee.

Through the newly-integrated online self-registration portal, Warren County residents can now sign up to receive emergency alert notifications on their cell phone as well as unlisted landline number.  Self-registrant addresses are periodically geo-coded into the Rapid Notify mapping system, enabling more precise alert targeting based on proximity to an emergency situation.

“I am very happy with the Rapid Notify system,” said Bill Hunt, Deputy Emergency Management Coordinator for Warren County Office of Emergency Management. “You push the button and it’s done. The speed of the system is amazing.”

In an emergency situation, the OEM coordinator for each municipality is directed to specify the message content and the area to be alerted and forward the information to the county office, which is then sent out on their behalf.

Now the County is encouraging its municipalities to establish sub-accounts to enable communications on a more relevant local level.  Allamuchy Township has just signed on and will soon have the ability to load its own contact lists and messages.

The County holds the master account, giving “parent” oversight control of all contact lists and alert messages, while giving municipal sub-accounts “child” level control over their own individual contact lists.  The “child” sub-account contacts can be alerted separately by local officials or all together by the master county account.  This helps to unify all communication channels into a single system to simplify activation, ensure message consistency and reduce alerting time.

Grand Jury Warns Against Overly Cautious Emergency Communication

There have been several recent incidents involving emergency communications that were too little too late. Illustrating this rising problem, the Santa Barbara County Civil Grand Jury in California recently expressed its concern regarding limitations of an automated telephone call-out system and the internal communications required prior to an emergency notification being issued.

After Santa Barbara County faced a series of devastating wildfire emergencies in the last five years, the 2010-11 Santa Barbara County Civil Grand Jury conducted an investigation.

According to the Grand Jury “many officials in the various emergency information organizations seemed reluctant to release information to the media and public because of ‘verifiability’ issues.”  In addition, the Grand Jury expressed concern that the verification process “significantly slowed alert and follow-up information needed by the public – in some cases from 30 to 60 minutes.”

As for the potential cause of these communication problems, the Grand Jury cited “an overly cautious culture when it came to communication among emergency agencies” as well as jurisdiction issues.

Recommendations from the Grand Jury included encouraging county and city officials to require emergency agencies to pass emergency information to adjacent jurisdictions and the County Office of Emergency Services without delay and specifying that the OES should be placed in charge of emergency education development and distribution, and should receive funding for such.

Read the entire report here: http://www.sbcgj.org/2011/EmergencyAlert.pdf