Every Life Secure!

Secure Suvivor from Latin America - Emergency Preparation Saves the Family

This week I presented a seminar on emergency preparedness and 72 hour emergency kits to an inner city hispanic church congregation.  Their women's auxiliary had asked me to help their group learn how to prepare for potential disasters.  As we started, several people in the audience shared their secure survivor stories.  Given that most of the participants had grown up in Latin America, all but one person in the audience had experienced some type of man-made or natural disaster at some point in their lives.

One story that stood out for me was told by a 40-something year old mother of three who had grown up in a Central American country but has been living here in the United States and raising her family for the last several years.  When she was a teenage girl, her family had been warned that they needed to prepare for an emergency by having food, water and other basics on hand to last for several days.  As a teenager, she had paid little attention to the warnings and found them annoying.  Luckily her parents heeded the warnings and did prepare by storing some basic emergency supplies for survival.

Without warning, her family awoke one day to serious political violence in their city.  They were forced to stay in their home for over a week as people were being shot in the streets by one faction or another.  She knew people who had not prepared for an emergency and had thus quickly run out of food.  When the violence extended beyond just a few days, these families were forced to send family members out to try and find food.  Some of those who went to get food never came back because they were caught in the streets, shot, and killed.

She and her family remained safe inside their home until the violence had subsided.  They were able to safely shelter-in-place because they were prepared in advance of any indication that there was about to be a life-threatening emergency  Their was no need to convince this mother of three to be prepared with basic emergency supplies in case of a disaster.  She was there at my class to learn how to improve upon the supplies she already had rather than to be persuaded to prepare for an emergency.

I find that those who have been through some kind severe emergency or disaster have the need to be prepared pressed into their minds for the rest of their lives.  This is true whether they were well prepared at the time or they had to suffer in some manner because of lack of preparation.  I also find that sharing such stories can help to motivate those who have yet to experience a disaster or severe emergency to become prepared. 

These stories can also share key insight into how to best prepare for certain kinds of disasters.  In this case, having basic supplies (such as extra food) to shelter-in-place for several days was key to the survival of this lady's family.

Do you have a secure survivor story?  If so, please share it with us by commenting or emailing me at [email protected].  How did you survive a disaster or emergency and what did you learn from the experience that might help others?

Every Life Secure
An Emergency Preparedness Blog helping to make "Every Life Secure" in any emergency or disaster... at home, work, school, or on-the-go

David Scott - A Secure Survivor

My name is David Scott. I'm a "secure survivor” who has personally survived several natural and man-made disasters and emergencies, and I want to help others be prepared to do the same.  My goal in hosting this blog is to help ordinary people be secure in any disaster or emergency.

 

I survived my first disaster in 1970 while growing up in Asia on the Philippine Islands.  My father worked for General Electric and had been transferred to the Philippines after a two year assignment in Sydney, Australia.   Shortly after our move, my U.S. expatriate family and I were welcomed to the tropics by Super Typhoon Yoling. With its sustained winds of 130 MPH, this was one of the strongest and deadliest storms on record. 

 

Never having experienced any type of hurricane or typhoon, we were totally unprepared to weather both the storm and its aftermath.  In the process of "defending" our home from the high winds, my father, my two older brothers, and I narrowly escaped injury or death from the shattering of large glass patio doors.  For two weeks after the eye of the storm passed directly over our neighborhood (as seen above in this satellite view of the Typhoon Yoling storm track), we lived without electricity, running water, or access to groceries. 

 

As soon as the storm was over, we sped to the grocery store.  Too late!  I will always remember the candles lighting row after row of totally empty shelves. It was near Thanksgiving, so we roasted our frozen turkey on a charcoal barbecue grill.  After eating the rest of the contents of our refrigerator and freezer, we lived off of what rice and canned goods we happened to have on-hand at home. We lined up for water at a local public pump and carried it back home in buckets on a little wagon. 

 

These hardships taught us lessons that we would never forget.  As a family, we determined never to be caught unprepared again, and we made emergency preparedness a focus.

  

Since surviving that first typhoon, I have lived through various disasters and emergencies in the United States, Mexico, and the Philippines including: additional typhoons, floods, earthquakes, blizzards, severe storms, blackouts, a chemical plant explosion, a volcanic eruption, political violence (including riots, shootings, kidnappings, terrorist bombings), and the imposition of martial law.  In these subsequent events, my family and I have always been prepared with basic emergency food, water, and supplies to sustain ourselves for several days or longer.

 

I hope that together, with the help of those of you who choose to comment and participate on this blog, we will be able to better help ourselves and others prepare for emergencies and disasters.  In this way we can help to reach the ideal of ... "every life secure."

 

What is your true "secure survivor" story?  Please share your story with us by commenting or Emailing me at [email protected].  What did you learn from your experience?  How are you better prepared today?

 

Every Life Secure
An Emergency Preparedness Blog helping to make "Every Life Secure" in any emergency or disaster... at home, work, school, or on-the-go