Our friends Emily and Rob invited us to their annual Earthquake Dinner, held appropriately every year on the anniversary of the big 1906 SF earthquake. This is one of my favorite "theme" party ideas because it combines a classy dinner party with a little useful emergency training.
The first rule is no electricity - all candlelight, all the time. That's how they had to do it in 1906.
We started off the evening with some appetizers and a presentation on "triage." Rob gave us a little lesson on how to assist in an emergency situation by quickly sorting victims by the severity of their condition. When you don't have the resources to treat everyone immediately, you determine who is in most need of urgent care by assigning them colors - green is able-bodied, yellow is for minor flesh wounds, red is critical condition, and black is ... well. You don't want to be evaluated as black.
Then we played a little game where we had to evaluate a series of photos of injured people, and assign them different colors based on a quick assessment of their injuries. It was a fun AND educational party.
I grew up learning about the importance of a 72 hour kit, and other emergency preparedness activities, but was thinking this week about how Derek and I don't have much of an emergency plan other than "Well, I guess we can drink the water from our toilet, right?" We took the first step by at least determining a meeting spot, so that if we are not at home during some sort of disaster that wiped out phone service, we can find eachother. Next step - maybe I should work on some sort of first-aid kit other than a pack of neon band-aids in the cupboard.
Any advice on emergency preparedness?
3 comments:
I gave Les a 72 hour kit when we were dating (I was getting one anyway). It really impressed her mom and best friend. I figure that's a form of triage right there.
The red cross has some readymade (affordable) ones on their site:
http://www.redcrossstore.org/Shopper/Product.aspx?UniqueItemId=2&ViewSource=Category
Everyone should just get one.
nick and i were were called as emergency prep coordinators for our ward, so we actually got our kits together. we update them every general conference! honestly, it feels so good to know we have those kits. we also keep first aid and emergency food/water in our cars. if you need fear/guilt inspiration about getting them ready, you can watch that movie Contagion with Matt Damon. scary stuff!
keith - nothing says love like "i want you to survive the apocalypse"
linda - love the idea of having general conference as a time to update them - i need something that will keep me on a schedule.
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