Academy releases emergency preparedness tools to enable millions more people to shelte... (eport. The Academys main report doc...)

Academy releases emergency preparedness tools to enable millions more people to shelter in place

Date:9/13/2007

eport.

The Academys main report documents that the emergency preparedness instructions being given to people and organizations do not address many important sheltering-in-place issues and sometimes make matters worse. Among the many gaps it uncovered:

The public is being instructed to keep a supply of food and water in their homes, and most keep their medications there as well. But in a shelter-in-place emergency, many people will not be at home and will need to take shelter in other buildings, so their home-supply of food, water, or medicines wont be accessible.

The public is being told to identify places for family members to reunite in the event of an emergency. But those instructions dont address situations in which it might be unsafe to go to such a place, such as if you would have to go through a danger zone to get there.

While instructions describe how to identify and seal safe rooms in homes, schools, and other buildings, they pay little attention to assuring that the rooms can accommodate the number of people who are likely to need shelter, provide them with breathable air and tolerable temperatures, or give them safe access to water, food, lavatories, telephones, and medical supplies.

Schools have been preparing for emergencies that affect the school directly, but children are also at risk if their parents and other guardians need to shelter in place because of an emergency and no other adult is available to pick the children up or be at home with them after school.

The disconnect between current instructions and the problems people face in shelter-in-place emergencies isnt surprising, since the public never had an opportunity to think about these situations in such detail before, Lasker said.

The Academy has been harnessing the publics knowledge about emergencies for several years now, with generous support from the W. K. Kellogg
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Contact: Kathryn Cervino
kcervino@nyam.org
212-822-7285
New York Academy of Medicine
Source:Eurekalert

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