Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Survival
George Abbott:
I’d like to welcome you to our seminar at Hadley.

Today we are talking about Emergency Preparedness and 
Disaster Survival. 
 
Now, let me introduce today’s speaker Ed Haines holds a 
Master Degree in Rehabilitation Teaching from Western 
Michigan University. He has worked with persons who are 
visually impaired for the last 13 years and is currently 
working full time for a State Agency as a rehabilitation 
teacher and counselor. For the past 4 years Ed has been a 
part time instructor for the Hadley School for the Blind, and 
he teaches the Safety and the Home course and the 
Personal Safety Self Defense course. So, with no further 
ado, I present you Ed Haines.
Ed Haines:
Thanks for joining in this discussion of such an important 
topic. I’d like to preface this presentation by letting you all 
know and I am sure you knew this already there’s an 
extraordinary amount of information on the subject 
available and I certainly can’t begin to cover every thing in 
the space of an hour. In fact, many of the topics I plan to 
discuss today could take an hour in and of themselves. So 
you’ll doubtless notice emissions and details that I don’t 
include and I just wanted to let you know before hand I 
can’t possibly get to all the information I’d like to. But the 
purpose of this presentation is really to provide a jumping 
off point for you. Now, we all have turned on the news and 
we’ve witnessed the destructions that caused by both 
localized and widespread disasters and emergencies and 
you know we’ve seen the devastating aftermath of these 
events. And we know that many but not all individuals that 
survive these episodes even if their property does not. And 
of course I am talking about disasters and emergencies 
such as fires, and floods, and earthquakes, and violent 
storms such as storm Hurricane Katrina. Most of us know 
about emergency preparedness. Most of us have the facts 
somewhere in our memory bank. And most disaster 
preparation is a matter of common sense. However, for the 
majority of us there really is a gap between what we know 
about home safety and what we put into practice, and in a 
large part and I refer to this earlier. This is because there is 
so much information to organize and prioritize. That could 
be everything from designing fire evacuation plans to 
storing emergency water supplies. Now there have been a 
several reason initiatives thankfully on the federal and local 
level in this country to expand disaster release services to 
include persons with disabilities, and a lot more being done 
to include these individuals in local and federal emergency 
planning that’s never been done before. In part because of 
what was learned from the recent experiences of the World 
Trade Center and the Pentagon bombings and of course 
Hurricane Katrina. But the reality is, an emergency 
preparedness must begin at home. A fully implemented 
comprehensive home safety strategy, I think, is really as 
necessary as a water tight roof or a solid foundation. In 
times of emergencies, folks, there’s a period lasting from 
hours to days that individuals maybe entirely responsible 
for their own safety. Even if persons with disabilities 
receive disaster assistance from the community, parts of 
that assistance may not be accessible, it may be lacking in 
appropriate accommodations. The issue is that there may 
be circumstances where basic survival is at stake and 
where local authorities are overwhelmed by victims. And 
under those circumstances you may be sure that ADA 
regulations will not be a priority for rescue personnel. So 
that brings me to the purpose of this presentation. How do 
we prepare? How do we begin to develop our own 
comprehensive safety strategy? And how do we begin to 
obtain information we need to be as responsible as much, 
as much as possible for our own safety in times of 
emergency? And that’s the purpose of this discussion 
really. To give you an overview of emergency 
preparedness strategies, and really a frame work for 
developing your own comprehensive safety plan. I’ll more 
or less be structuring this discussion along the guidelines 
of the course Safety in the Home offered by Hadley which I 
teach, and included in this presentation. I’ll try to touch on 
following things, general preparedness and planning, fires 
and fire prevention, emergency supplies, evacuation 
planning, storms, black outs and floods, hurricanes, 
tornados, earthquakes and so on.  Like I said in the 
beginning, I can’t begin to give you all the information you 
need on this each subjects. We’ll try to touch on each one. 
And then at the end, I’ve got some resources that I’ll 
provide to you where you can go to get more information. 
And as George mentioned, I think, there will be some time 
for questions and answers afterwards. 
Ok, let me … let me begin by talking about general 
emergency preparedness. There’s a couple factors you 
have to take in consideration, when you begin to formulate 
your overall strategy. And the first factor, I want you to 
think about is the concept of emergency information. Now, 
emergency information really has several facets and there 
are two main facets to emergency information. And the first 
is emergency information that you receive as information 
that you need from the community or from other resources 
in order to make and form decisions. And the second is 
emergency information that you need about yourself either 
to apply in your own, as your own resource, or to give out 
to others in times of emergency. And I’ll explain this more 
thoroughly. 
Let me first talk about community information, information 
that you need to access in order to make responsible 
decisions. And of course, I’m talking about sources of 
emergency related information that can be broadcasts, or 
bulletins, emergency alert systems, announcements by 
local cable channels. There may be telephone call chains, 
community alarms or sirens. But it’s important for all of you 
to know exactly where your emergency information is 
coming from and under what circumstances it comes. 
That’s the first part.
The second part is the personal information that you need 
to have on yourself either for your own uses or to give out 
to others and the most important part of this equation is the 
emergency contact lists. Everyone needs to have one. And 
this list is critical because in times of disaster you may not 
have time to look up the contact information for assistants 
and individuals you need for assistance.
Also there might be a time if due to an injury or illness 
when you yourself are unable to contact the appropriate 
information and someone else is going to need to do that 
and they need to know where to look. Most of us don’t 
have an organized system. And here some examples, we 
usually keep some emergency contact information in our 
address book. Some of it we may keep on our refrigerator 
and some of it we may have to look up in the phone book. 
But the important thing is you need all this information 
immediately available and accessible to you and others. 
So, what kind of information I am talking about. Let me 
give you just some obvious examples. You need your 
medical information. You need the phone numbers of your 
doctor, your dentist, your local hospital, your pharmacist 
and other specialists you may use such as ophthalmologist 
or optometrist. You need the number of community 
resources like the Police Department, the Fire Department, 
the Poison Control Center, Red Cross, the number of the 
Federal Emergency Management Authority in your district, 
the number of your utility companies. I also advise you 
have numbers of friends or relatives who you can count on 
in times of disasters for assistance and that would include, 
and I probably mention this again because it’s important, 
… would include the numbers of a friend or a relative that 
at least 50 to 100 miles away from your residence, and that 
person has a place where you can go to in times of 
evacuation. Also if you have children living in your home, 
you need to have the numbers of their pediatricians and 
course of, their schools. Now here are obvious numbers 
that I think it would be relevant to have in your contact list. 
Again this depends on the individual. But I would include 
the number of your insurance agent. You might include the 
number of your lawyer. I would definitely include the 
number if you are the homeowner, the number of your 
plumber, electrician, heating and air technician, and even 
an individual who might be responsible for cleaning your 
drains. That can constitute an emergency. Also include the 
number of your internet provider. If you live in an 
apartment building, of course, definitely have the number 
of your supervisor and any other individuals that are 
responsible for the maintenance of your apartment. If you 
have pets, please include the number of your veterinarian, 
local animal hospital and animal shelter. And again the 
number of a friend and relatives that’s at least 50 to 100 
miles away from your current residence where you might 
stay if an evacuation is necessary. Now, I’ve left out tons 
of different numbers and you can think of plenty on your 
own. The important thing is that’s your emergency contact 
list includes all the critical contact information relevant to all 
aspects of you and your family’s life. 
Now, these numbers have to be accessible in a hurry. If 
you are a Braille reader you can keep them in a special 
binder or on a box of index cards. Some students have 
suggested to me that they might be kept on a computer 
disk. I think that’s OK. The concern I have about keeping 
any information digitally is that, if power is down in times of 
a disaster you may not be able to access that digital 
information. But really what ever works for you. Some folks 
have also wanted to put the contact information on 
audiotapes. And I think that’s a great idea. Also just make 
sure that particular audiotape with that important 
information is kept in a separate location from the other 
audiotapes and it’s very clearly marked either in with Braille 
or a large print if you are a large print reader so you can 
access that information and you’re not searching through a 
bunch of tapes. Also one other thing about your contact 
list, if you’re a Braille reader and your contact list is in 
Braille, I encourage you to have a print copy as well. 
Because as I mentioned before, if you are unable to 
access that information due to your own injury or illness, 
you need to have a copy of it that’s accessible for either a 
friend or relative or anyone else in the home who may not 
be a Braille reader. So try to have two copies. 
All right, another facet of having that information is, 
knowing when to give that information out. I eluded to that 
before, and of course, I am talking about is, knowing what 
kind of information to give Emergency Medical Services as 
we call in the states EMS and when to give that information 
out. Now, it’s certainly appropriate in these following 
circumstances to call EMS, if there’s a fire, an explosion, a 
vehicle collision, definitely downed electrical lines, rapidly 
rising water, and the presence of gas. Also, the following 
medical conditions that might require EMS include 
persistent chest pain, trouble breathing, rapid breathing or 
pulse, pain in either arm discomfort of pressure that 
spreads to your shoulder, arm, neck or jaw, severe 
breeding, seizures, severe headache, changes in level of 
consciousness, serious injuries to head, neck or back, 
broken bones or certainly situations that involve more than 
one victim. Now, if you’ve evaluated the situation and 
you’ve determined that EMS is appropriate to call what do 
you tell them? 
Well, number 1. There are actually 5 distinct steps that you 
need to remember. This is pretty much commonsense, but 
I’ll say them anyway. You need to … number 1. Explain the 
type of the emergency. 2. Give the phone number from 
where you are calling in case you get disconnected. 3. 
Give the street address, closest intersection and city. And 
if you live in an apartment, number 4, give the name of the 
apartment, number and your building. And 5 always stay 
on the line as long as the dispatcher does, and speak 
slowly and clearly.
That’s touching briefly on emergency information. And as I 
said before there’s lots more information you could include 
in your contact list, and other circumstances where 
certainly you might want to call EMS. But this is kind of to 
give you to a starting point for developing your own list. Sit 
down with family members, talk about what numbers are 
important to you, and what information you have to have 
access to, in times of emergency, and get that information 
down in an organized accessible fashion.
Ok, I like to switch gears a little bit, and begin talking about 
fires, and fire prevention. And, I’m gonna be talking about 
specific regarding other types of emergencies as well. But 
I’d like to talk about fire prevention and fires first because 
fire is a catastrophe, statistically more people are likely to 
face. And so, as I talk about fires, I am really going to 
break it down into two parts. And the first is talking about a 
fire escape plan, and then I’d like to talk briefly about fire 
prevention and prevention devices.
So let me move on first, to talking about your fire escape 
plan. And I want to give you some statistics about fire 
these are results of polls given to American populations. 
Only one fifth to one fourth, that’s 23 percent of 
households in the United States, have actually developed 
and practiced a home fire escape plan. That’s only 23 
percent. In 2004 there were estimated 395,000 reported 
home structured fires and 3,190 associated civilian deaths 
in the United States. That’s a very high number. When 
they conducted this particular poll they asked this question 
of American households about to make an estimate about 
how long they thought they would have in their home 
before a fire became life threatening. And one third of 
American households made an estimate thought they 
thought they would have at least 6 minutes before a fire in 
their home would become life threatening. And actually the 
time available is often less. And here is the scariest 
statistic of all, only 8 percent of those polled said their first 
thought on hearing a smoke alarm would be to get out.  
Well that should give you food for thought and sort of drive 
home the importance of the rest of this presentation 
regarding fires. And first like to talk about your fire escape 
plan specifically. Now, what do you need to do first? You 
first need to identify the exits for each room of your house 
or apartment. And you can ask yourself questions like do 
you have doors in your rooms that lead to the outside. If 
you have windows in your rooms on the first floor, are they 
reachable to everyone in the house? Are they large enough 
to use as an exit? Do they have locks, for instance that can 
be unlocked easily. If you have second floor windows, 
would you consider buying and deploying escape ladders 
for second floor rooms? And if you have them, you need to 
make sure everyone knows how to use them. Ask yourself 
do any family members have mobility impairments that 
would restrict them from using certain exits? Now once you 
identify the exits, it’s very important you identify the routes 
to those exits from every area of the house. So ask 
yourself if there furniture or other items blocking critical exit 
routes. Again are the windows and are doors locked? And 
if they are, can they be unlocked quickly under extreme 
hurried circumstances and possibly in an environment 
that’s filled with smoke? 
The next thing you need to do is identify a meeting place 
for the members of the household after the evacuation. 
Everyone needs to know where to go. The sad factor is 
that deaths occur very frequently because one member of 
the family goes back into a building for someone who’s 
safely out, but not in the designated spot. I recommend 
choosing a meeting place that’s not too close to your 
dwelling. A lot of folks distinctively want to meet on the 
sidewalk right in front of their house. The problem with that 
is, that is likely to be the spot of the most … of the greatest 
activity from fire prevention, and public safety officers, 
maybe fire engines in that spot. There may be hoses. It 
may be dark. There may be lots of activity. It may be very 
difficult to meet. So I would choose a place that’s to the 
side or across the street from your home that would be 
more likely to be less confusing, and it’s more easy to 
identify all the family members that are there. If you live in 
an apartment, definitely ask your building supervisor if 
there is a fire escape plan. And if you don’t conduct fire 
drills, encourage your supervisor to start them. Sometimes 
apartment floors have fire monitors, if they don’t that’s a 
useful program to begin. If you are stuck in an apartment, 
a lot of fire research indicates the best thing to do might be 
to actually stay in your apartment, call EMS giving them 
your apartment address, the floor number etc. And then 
hang something out of the window as a flag to alert the fire 
department. Often stairways become conduits for flame 
and smoke, and they may not be the safest place in an 
apartment building in a fire. There is no definite answer 
about evacuating in an apartment building in case of a fire. 
But some fire experts do recommend that you actually stay 
in your apartment. 
If you have to evacuate, you need to know what to do. Not 
only do you need to know how to get out of your house or 
your apartment building, but you need to know what’s 
going to happen as you evacuate. What source of 
conditions you’ll be confronting, if your clothes catch on 
fire, for instance. We’ve all been taught this as children but 
I’ll repeat it. You need to stop, drop and roll. More 
importantly, however, you need to know how to deal and 
what to expect from smoke. Smoke rises. For instance, if 
the alarm goes off while you’re in bed, it’s a good idea not 
to sit or stand up because that’s our first instinct ‘cause 
you want to get out quickly. Instead, roll out onto the floor. 
If you’re moving through a smoke field house, stay low, 
crawl on your hands and knees. If you can, keep a wet 
cloth, if possible, to filter out the smoke. If you’re trapped in 
a room, stuff the cracks in the doors and the vents with 
towels or cloths to keep the smoke from coming in. If 
you’re planning on exiting a room with a closed door, watch 
out for closed doors. Make sure that if they are not hot on 
the surface, in fact, you can feel the knob with the door 
surface perfectly with the back of your hand because that’s 
more sensitive before opening. If either the knob or the 
surface feel hot, don’t open the door you might create a 
back draft which would usher flames into the room. Also 
very important, never ignore fire alarms. Treat each one as 
if there is a real fire. And I’ll say it again you need to 
conduct drills in your home or in your apartment building. 
Every member of the family needs to know automatically 
what to do. There won’t be time to think in times of a 
disaster.
And I want to talk briefly about another important family 
member and that is service animals. I get a lot of questions 
about service animals and individuals often want to know 
… can I count on my dog to help me evacuate a building 
that’s on fire? And I’ve talked to a number of trainers at 
service animal schools, and I don’t get a very definitive 
answer but what I do get it I will pass on. The first thing 
you need to know is, it’s really up to you and your dog. And 
it is up to the individual dog. There are some certain dogs 
won’t react well under extreme circumstances. There may 
be an individual dog that will rise to the occasion and 
behave heroically, but you can’t count on that. So the 
consensus from trainers at service animal schools that I’ve 
talked to, sort of can be incapsulated in the following 3 
points.
They recommend number one, and this may sound 
controversial. I think it’s up to the individual. But they 
recommend number 1, not to risk your own life for the life 
of the dog. I think again that’s an individual choice. And 
certainly I know a lot of folks, myself included that would be 
willing to risk their life for their pet or service animals.
 Now, the second point is maybe more important, and that 
is, in times of disaster or in times of normal activity, if you 
are a service animal user you are always responsible for 
your own orientation. That holds true under any 
circumstance. So can you count on the dog to help you get 
out of a burning building? Possibly. Can you count on the 
dog to know where to go to get out of a burning building? 
No. You have to count on yourself. As always you’re 
responsible for your own orientation.
And finally, several of the trainers have emphasized to me 
that, as always, if you stay calm, it’s more likely your dog 
will stay calm. And this goes back to being well prepared. If 
you want your dog to help you during times of emergency, 
the best thing you can do is be calm. And the best way to 
be calm is to be appropriately prepared yourself.
All right let me move on to the fire prevention and there’s 
lots I can say about fire prevention. But I’ll just touch briefly 
on some obvious points just to jog your memory. I don’t 
have to say a lot about smoking materials, but obviously 
everyone probably knows how to safely handle smoking 
materials. Definitely, don’t smoke in bed. Use appropriate 
ashtrays and dispose of ashes properly. Flammable liquid 
is something that we think about is an obvious thing. 
Gasoline, of course, is an obvious flammable liquid. 
However, there are lots of different kinds of flammable 
liquid and some of them we keep in our medicine cabinet 
such as finger nail polish remover, etc. So make sure you 
know where all your flammable liquids are. Store them in 
the appropriate containers. And definitely in the case of 
gasoline and kerosene, store them in the right kind of 
containers, and store them outside of your home in a shed 
or a garage. Everyone hears this cautionary advice around 
the holiday times, but holiday decorations are a great fire 
hazard. Christmas trees, if they are not kept live, 
Christmas trees particularly, if they are not kept watered, 
can post a fire hazard. They combust very easily, and in 
seconds they can go up in flames. So definitely, keep them 
away from heat sources. And of course, use appropriate 
Christmas tree lights. Also, don’t run trains under the trees. 
Folks like to run model electric trains under the Christmas 
tree those can create sparks, and of course, sparks can 
cause trouble. If you live in a rural area and not an urban 
one you need to landscape for fire prevention. Make sure 
that your grass is mowed and you have a parameter of 
almost at least 30 yards around your home, free of long 
grass and trees. Don’t let tree branches touch your roof. If 
you use a wood burning stove or a fire place, make sure 
you have a chimney screen or a spark arrestors to keep 
sparks from flying out into the surrounding landscape. And 
also if you have a rural road or a private road going through 
your home through your property, make sure it’s 16 feet 
wide at least so that the emergency vehicles can access 
your home. If you have a furnace, make sure it’s serviced 
properly. I would definitely have it inspected once a year 
and also change the filters on a regular basis. If you have a 
use and use a fire lace, please use only the recommended 
material that is to go in that fire place and that means 
firewood. Don’t use charcoal. Actually, charcoal can 
produce excessive amount of carbon monoxide. Don’t light 
your fire with gasoline or kerosene. Have your flue cleaned 
and inspected once a year. Don’t let your ashes built up, 
and particularly if you have children, but all the time. At any 
rate use a good fireplace screen. If you have a natural gas 
or propane gas appliances and you smell gas, the best 
thing you can do is, get out of the house immediately. 
Don’t try to turn on the electricity or turn on the light, and 
don’t use the phone. Get out of the house if you can. Turn 
the main off outside of the home. And immediately proceed 
to a neighbors and call 911. Your electrical system I’ll talk 
about this just briefly. Use GFIs in your kitchen and bath. 
Those are ground fault interrupted circuits. And those are 
special circuit stick trip in case of the short right at the 
socket itself to prevent electrocution. If you live in an old 
house, definitely have your system inspected and updated. 
Please be careful with extension cords. Don’t plug too 
many into one outlet. Don’t have them traipsed all over the 
floors where people can trip on them. Don’t overload your 
circuits. A cautionary word about torchiere lamps they’re 
very popular. They’re quite bright. You can adjust the 
intensity of the light so folks really like them. More often 
they do not contain halogen bulbs. Those bulbs burn … 
they are very very hot indeed. The newer torchieres have a 
screen over that bulb so if the lamp does tip over, hopefully 
won’t come in contact with curtains or other cloth. But 
nonetheless, the bulbs are hot. Those screens have been 
known to pop off. And earlier torchiere lamps, in fact, did 
not have protective screens on them. Also, if during these 
winter months, this is more relevant, watch out through 
your electric space heaters. Those are certainly dangerous 
and need to be kept well away from, again curtains and 
beds, and anything else that’s flammable. 
Two important devices for fire prevention, of course, are 
smoke detectors and fire extinguishers. Smoke detectors 
please change your batteries every six months. And keep a 
smoke detector at minimum one on each level of the home 
preferably close to the bedrooms. And test your batteries 
once a month. Fire extinguishers are certainly appropriate 
to have in the home. A few cautionary things about fire 
extinguishers, number one, the certain types of fire 
extinguishers are good for certain types of fires. Make sure 
you have the right fire extinguisher. We recommend that 
text for Safety in the Home recommends that you have an 
ABC fire extinguisher. And that puts out all types of fires 
and just a little memory device so that you know that you’re 
getting the right kind of extinguisher. “A” stands for ash. 
So, an A extinguisher put out any fire that’s results from 
solids that are burning. B stands for the letter boil and so, a 
B fire extinguisher is specifically for liquid fires and C 
stands for the word current. And of course a C fire 
extinguisher puts out any kind of electrical fires. The 
advantage of an ABC fire extinguisher is that puts out all 
three. Now, if you’re planning to have and use fire 
extinguisher I really recommend that you have a spare 
one. And practice deploying it in the backyard or in the 
alley or somewhere because there’s a certain trick to it. 
And during times of an emergency is possibly not the best 
time to be learning how to use a fire extinguisher. If you do 
use one, you need to be able to aim at the base of the 
flames, and use a fanning motion sweeping back and forth 
at the fire. But it has to be aimed at the base of flames or it 
won’t be effective. One more thing about fire extinguishers, 
lingering around, say … a burning kitchen or a burning 
Christmas tree and using a fire extinguisher may not be 
your best choice. Fires spread incredibly quickly. If you 
remember I said that they often become dangerous in 
much less than 6 seconds. That’s not much time. So … it’s 
6 minutes … I’m sorry. So, I recommend that if you feel at 
all nervous about the fire that you evacuate as soon as 
possible. You may not want to sit and play around with the 
fire extinguisher.
OK, that’s all I’m going to say about fires for now. Let’s 
move on to another level of emergency preparedness and 
disaster planning. And that is more general planning and 
general strategies to cope with emergencies and disasters. 
And all I want to mention first that really is a difference 
between an emergency and a disaster. Emergencies really 
are categorized as those crisis’s, which can be handled by 
local resources. Disasters are need to be handled by relief 
from the outside. They usually involve large amounts of 
people and organized mass care efforts evacuations etc. 
So, as I mentioned before in the first place when you’re 
preparing for an emergency or disaster you need to have 
access to emergency alerts and broadcasts. You need to 
know I mentioned this already which TV or radio stations 
etc to listen to. Know the name of your county or township. 
Know what they are referring to. If there are sirens, know 
under what circumstances they go off.

Also, I recommend that you the difference between a 
watch and warning. It’s amazing how many folks kind of 
vague about that concept. A watch means that weather 
conditions are correct for a phenomena to occur. That 
means the conditions are right for a phenomena to occur. 
A warning means that the phenomena is actually occurring. 
That’s the difference. If you have to evacuate your home 
you need to have a plan in place before that happens. 
Please have a plan in place before a disaster occurs. And 
this plan really needs to include all your family members 
and your pets as well. And I really recommend that your 
review this plan and rehearse it on a regular basis. 
So, what needs to be included in your plan. First of all, you 
need an evacuation destination. If you have to leave your 
home, where would you go and how would you get there? 
Make sure you have at least two alternate destinations. 
Routes may be blocked. These can include shelters, 
relatives, friends and make sure you yourself know how to 
get to these destinations. And by that I mean you need to 
know the streets, the turnings, the cardinal directions, the 
landmarks etc. The issue is that you can be able to direct a 
complete stranger like a rescue personnel to your 
evacuation destination without relying on anyone else for 
directions. Just like during a fire I mentioned before, you 
are responsible as much as possible yourself for your own 
orientation and that includes identify and getting to an 
evacuation destination.

Now I will say that some towns and cities do have 
registrations for persons with disabilities and that let public 
safety officials prioritize evacuation plans. And in fact, I’ve 
had a couple of students who’ve been able to start such 
registrations by talking to their local town councils or city 
officials. But I don’t know if you can rely on these. In times 
of real disaster, rescue officials may be overwhelmed. 
Routes may be blocked etc. You may not be able to rely on 
someone else to help you. 

Now if you do have to go to a shelter and you use a 
service animal, there are some questions that have come 
up about service animals at shelters. You do need to know 
that the law is that service animals must be permitted in 
shelters if they are trained to assist a person with a 
disability. And there really aren’t any exceptions to this 
rule. There are only two reasons a person with a disability 
might be asked to remove a service animal from the 
shelter. And that is if the animal is out of control, and 2, if 
the animal poses a direct threat to the safety of others. 
Otherwise, you are allowed by law, definitely to have your 
service animal in a shelter.

Let me discuss your disaster kit and this disaster kit are 
the items you bring with you or store in your home to 
increase your chances of your survival. Here’s the kicker 
with the disaster kit. It’s best to have a 2 week supply. 
That’s a lot of stuff to keep you alive and well, and it takes 
up a lot of space. But if it’s all possible a 2 week supply is 
what you need. And this is illustrated by the after effects of 
Hurricane Katrina. We all watched these folks who had 
some supplies but not enough to last them for the duration. 
People went sometimes as much as 2 weeks without 
receiving even fresh water from emergency relief 
personnel. So, having some supplies is not enough. Really, 
if it’s all possible, you need a supply for the long haul. Now 
this isn’t appropriate for everyone. Some folks live in small 
apartments where storage of this kind of these kinds of 
goods is just not possible. And that’s OK. The point is to 
have as much as you practically can collect and store. 

All right, what do you need in your disaster kit? First, you 
need your contact list that we went over before. You also 
need a first aid kit. And you can either assemble those 
yourselves and the Red Cross website has some good 
links on lists for first aid kits. You also can purchase first 
aid kits. The website for the Department of Home Land 
Security also has information on first aid kits. And as I said 
at the beginning of the presentation, I will be giving you 
some resources on where to find these websites at the end 
of my discussion. Definitely, include one good meal a day. 
And try to choose foods that are high in protein and 
calories that don’t need any preparation. Choose, if you’re 
gonna use can goods, choose can goods that have pull 
tabs that don’t require a can opener, just in case the can 
opener gets lost or forgotten. Take a battery powered 
flashlight with you, extra batteries, certainly, a water proof 
matches, candles, a radio. They make some wonderful 
radios now that work with a hand crank as well so that if 
batteries wear out you can crank the thing back up and it 
still works. Some of those even have a connections for cell 
phones so you can charge your cell phone with a hand 
crank. Definitely, include sturdy shoes, extra clothes, a 
knife and all purpose tool, paper plates, cups, etc, foil, 
medications for 2 weeks.  If you need mobility aids, try to 
have an extra cane or other mobility aids, certainly, a 
check book, credit card, copy of personal documents and 
even a disposable camera to account for any property 
damage it might not be a bad idea. 

I also want to talk about water very briefly. As I said 
before, having a 2 week supply is ideal. How much do you 
need for 2 weeks? If you are a one person, you need one 
gallon per person per day. That does not including 
washing.  If you’re gonna wash with it, you need two 
gallons. One gallon per person per day, so 2 weeks supply 
is 14 gallons. Now, if you have 5 members in your family, 
that’s a lot of water to store.  Almost impossible, but try to 
store as much as possible and don’t forget to store an 
extra for your pets or they will be drinking your water. Now, 
if you’re going to store water, the really the safest and 
most reliable emergency water supply is commercially 
bottle of water. You can keep that a long period of time. It 
can stay in its original container and you don’t have to open 
it until you need to use it. If you are going to store… create 
your own storage water, and you don’t want to buy it, 
definitely, buy food grade storage containers from say … a 
camping supply store, and use those for water storage. 
Don’t forget to wash them first. Rinse them completely. 
Don’t leave any soap in there or you won’t be able to drink 
the water. If you are going to use your own storage 
containers and people want sometimes to recycle storage 
containers for water. And I’ll just mention this briefly 
because it’s important. The only storage containers that I 
recommend you use, are 2 liter plastic soft drink bottles. 
Don’t use jugs or cardboard containers that have had milk 
or fruit juice in them. Milk proteins and fruit sugars cannot 
be adequately removed from these containers. They do 
provide an environment for bacterial growth when water is 
stored in them particularly in room temperature. Also, 
cardboard containers obviously leak easily. Also don’t use 
glass containers. They can break and they’re also just very 
heavy. So if you’re going to use 2 liter plastic soft drink 
bottles, please thoroughly clean the bottles with dish 
washing soap and water, rinse them completely and you 
also need to sanitize them. Make a solution of about a 
teaspoon of non scented liquid house chorine bleach to 
about a quarter of water. Swoosh that solution around in 
the bottle so that it touches around the surfaces, and then 
thoroughly rinse it out. And then you can fill the bottle with 
tap water. Make sure you don’t touch the inside of the cap 
and contaminate the cap. If you use a well, and you don’t 
have city treated water that’s treated with chorine, it’s 
important that you fill those bottles with well water, place 
another drop or 2 and again of non scented liquid 
household chorine bleach to the water before you close 
that cap up. That will keep the water decontaminated and 
keep it clean.

All right I want to talk about service animals and pets again 
briefly. And this is with regard to your disaster kit and your 
disaster planning. The American Council for The Blind has 
published a very healthy brochure with tips for disaster 
planning for your service animal. And I’ll just go over some 
of these. The first is identification. Make sure your service 
animal or your pet has current identification tags including, 
of course your home number and an out of state contact 
number. Most service animals already have this. But for a 
pet you can easily put duct tape on their collar and write 
that information on it with a permanent marker. It’s also a 
good idea to have your animal tattooed or microchiped. 
Again most service animals are microchiped. You should 
bring supplies for your service animal. They need a 
disaster kit just like you. Definitely, they should have any 
medications that they require an extra leash, collar, 
harness, food and water for 3 days at least. I would 
recommend even bringing more if you can or they will be 
dinning on your rations. A bowl, plastic bags for pick up, a 
favorite toy, definitely a copy of your animal health records, 
ID numbers, veterinary’s contact information, if possible, 
maybe a blanket or a bed, glooming supplies, animal first 
aid kit with items such as antibiotic cream, antiseptic 
ointments and written instructions on the care of your 
animal and/or photos, and descriptions of your animal, in 
case you are separated. And a service animal user 
reminds me you should also pack milk bones or some kind 
of treat. And that’s really the dog’s priority.

We talked about a bit of disaster planning, and touched on 
a few topics with regard preparing yourself and developing 
your own plan. Now I like to move on and discuss some 
specific disasters briefly. And in the interest of time, I’m 
going to be brief about these. Let me first talk about 
hurricanes and tornados, and depending on where some of 
you folks live.  You may well be more an expert on 
hurricanes and tornados than I am. So, bear with me if I 
omit something important. Preparation is really much the 
same with hurricanes and tornados except for one big 
difference. With hurricanes you generally have about 24-26 
hours to prepare and tornados you don’t have any time to 
prepare at all usually. It’s important to remember also that 
tornados are often spawned by hurricanes so the two can 
go together. 

So, how do you prepare?  Definitely, monitor your local 
broadcast, your National Oceanographic and Atmospheric 
Administration Alerts. That’s NOAA. And in fact you can 
purchase NOAA radios that pick up these broadcast and 
even issue alerts while they’re turned on when the NOAA 
releases them. Make sure your building is up to 
construction codes. You can install permanent shutters. 
Make sure your trees are trimmed. Remove loose objects 
from your yard. Again know the difference between a 
watch and a warning. And if we are all face to face, I would 
call on each one of you and make sure you knew. Prepare 
for flooding. And with tornados, of course, there’s four 
letters, QUID. They stand for Quickly, Under, In and Down. 
If you don’t have a basement, use a bathroom, or use an 
indoor hallway. If you’re in a high rise apartment, you can’t 
get to a lower floor, choosing an exterior hallway and 
definitely conduct tornado drills. They’re very very 
important. In fact, some large buildings have tornado 
monitors that are responsible for conducting those drills. 
But you can conduct tornado drills in your home as well, 
just like you can have fire drills. Now with hurricanes, it’s 
also advisable to move into an interior space. Now the 
aftermaths for both of these weather phenomena’s have 
some similar concerns. There is going to be debris and 
broken glass, so make sure if you are investigating your 
home after a hurricane or tornado has passed over that 
you are wearing sturdy shoes. Watch out for down power 
lines. Watch for gas leaks and for flooded areas. Inspect 
your structure carefully and I would advise you to hire a 
professional to do this if you have any questions at all. 
Sewer or water pipes may be broken and it may take a 
long time for them to be fixed. And this is where you might 
need that water even storing up that I mentioned before. 
Also in certain areas of the country, watch out for animals, 
snakes or rodents may have taken shelter in your home 
because of the severe weather or accompanying high 
water so watch out for snakes particularly. If the power 
was off for a while certainly don’t eat your perishables in 
your refrigerator. And this is where your contact list 
becomes very important. You’re going to need to know 
where those numbers are, so you can contact your 
insurance company, and assorted personnel to assist you.

All right let me move on to thunder storms. Like I said I’m 
just touching on all of these very briefly. If you’re caught 
outside in a thunderstorm, be aware of lightening. You 
know statistically more people are killed by lightening than 
floods, hurricanes or tornados. That’s frightening, isn’t it? 
It’s important to remember that if you’re caught outside. 
Lightening can actually travel to points 10 miles away from 
a storm front.  So, if you think you have any doubt at all 
that you’re going to be trapped outside and there’s a 
possibility of a lightening, please try to take cover. Avoid 
trees, holes, metal objects. Find shelter, preferably really in 
a good side building or a hard top car. Under the worst 
circumstances if you’re trapped in an open area during a 
lightening storm, assume what’s called a lightening 
position, crouch down keep the soles of your feet on the 
ground. Don’t touch the ground with anything but the soles 
of your feet. And clasp your hands over your ears to 
protect them from any loud noises that accompany 
lightening. 

Now, thunderstorms not only can cause lightening but can 
cause blackouts. And just briefly, if there is an extended 
blackout, you can wrap your fridge so that to make sure 
you don’t lose your perishable if possible. I recommend 
that you unplug during a blackout. Unplug all your 
appliances but one, and in fact, one student had a very 
helpful suggestion. Leave the appliance that’s plugged in, 
make that a transistor radio. That way you’ll know when 
the power comes back on and you’ll know audibly.  And 
also, if it tuned to the weather station, you’ll have instant 
information on what’s going on out there. And then wait a 
half an hour before turning on your other appliances 
because it’s going to be possible power surges after a 
blackout.  And you want to protect your surges. You want 
to protect your appliances, sorry, from those surges.

All right let’s talk about floods briefly. They of course occur 
on their own or as a result of other natural disasters. You 
can find out if you’re in a flood zone, or a flood risk area. 
The Federal Emergency Management Authority has a flood 
insurance risk map. County authorities usually have 
information about that. Of course, if there’s a flood that’s 
occurring, you may have to prepare for evacuation. And 
again I refer you to your disaster kit and your evacuation 
routes. And you need to know the aftermath of a flood is 
often worst than the occurrence. There will be a lot of 
damage. And you’ll need to do a lot of assessments of the 
damage. And particularly, there’ll be a lot of 
decontamination and clean up after a flood.

I want to mention earthquakes briefly. And in the United 
States, it is a relevant topic because although we know 
that some parts of the states are more prone to 
earthquakes than others. Actually, no region really in the 
United States is totally immune from earthquakes. So, 
many of us should include earthquakes in our disaster 
planning. Now, if you’re in a prone area, certainly have 
your home inspected by a structural engineer, raise your 
chimney, use flexible pipe fittings, strap a water heater to 
wall studs bolted to the floor, anchor appliances, anchor 
your heavy or tall furniture, raise ceiling light fixtures, or 
keep latches on your cupboard. If an earthquake is 
happening, follow the 3 rules. Drop, cover and hold on.

Drop, don’t try to stand. Sit down where you are, and cover 
your head with anything handy, and that goes again to 
cover. Get under a desk. If you got more than just a pillow 
to cover your head, get under a desk a table. Get into a 
corner of an interior wall and stay away from windows and 
tall furniture, and then hold on. If you are under a desk or a 
table, hold on to it because it might actually vibrate and 
move away from you. Keep it over you. If you’re asleep in 
bed and an earthquake occurs the best advice is probably 
to stay in bed until the first shock is over. Before you put 
those feet on the floor, make sure you have access to a 
sturdy pair of shoes because following an earthquake there 
is always a great amount of broken glass and debris. You 
don’t want to step on it. If you’re outside during an 
earthquake, drop to the ground. Avoid if you can, being 
under trees or power lines. And also conduct drills in your 
home.  Make sure your family knows where all the safe 
spots in the house are. Again with an earthquake, some of 
the difference from other disasters is that aftershocks can 
occur, following a major earthquake, and they can occur 
almost sometimes for months afterwards. Once the first 
shock has stopped, it’s not a good idea to enter any kind of 
damaged building because there may be aftershock, which 
loosen that material and you can be injured by falling 
debris. So, if after shock does occur, please repeat those 
safety strategies.

Now there are many more kinds of emergency and 
disasters I could refer to. Really in interest of time I can’t 
talk about them all. But there is one final disaster I’d like to 
touch on briefly because it’s really been featured in the 
local news a lot. And that disaster I’m referring to is 
pandemic flu. Really the concern is very real and most of 
us don’t understand the difference between seasonal flu 
and pandemic flu. Seasonal flu is caused by influenza 
viruses that have already circulated among the world 
population. We have an immunity built up to those, and of 
course they’re unpleasant. They cause fever and headache 
etc. And sometimes, it can be fetal to people particularly 
with compromised immune systems. But pandemic flus are 
caused by a new influenza virus that people have not been 
exposed to before. They are likely to be much more severe 
and affect many many people and cause many more 
deaths than a seasonal influenza virus. People really don’t 
have immunity to a new virus. The symptoms may be 
similar to the common flu but much more severe and the 
complications can be more severe. Another interesting 
thing about pandemic flus is that with regular influenza, it’s 
not healthy adults who are usually at risk for serious 
complications. With a pandemic flu, actually healthy adults 
may be at increased risk for serious complications. The 
effects of the severe pandemic could be severe much 
more damaging than those of a regular flu season. They 
could be high level of illness, death, social destruction, 
economic loss, every aspect of life could be disrupted 
because there’ll be so many people so ill all at once. You 
can plan, for instance, for the possibility that usual services 
may be disrupted and these could include services 
provided by hospitals, health care facilities, banks, 
restaurants, government offices, phone companies, cell 
phone companies, post offices, stores, may be closed. 
That’s why it’s important to have that disaster kit handy. 
Transportation services may be disrupted. You may not be 
able to rely on public transportation at all. Gas may be … 
gasoline may be hard to come by. Public gatherings may 
be disrupted. Volunteer meetings, worship services will be 
canceled. The ability to travel at all may be jeopardized. 
You really should talk to your family about where family 
members and loved ones would go in such an emergency, 
and how they would receive care in case you can’t 
communicate with them. In a pandemic the illness could 
shut down, I think I mentioned already, ATM and banks. 
So really it might be important to keep a small amount of 
cash or some kind of negotiable currency available for your 
use. Food and water supplies really may be interrupted. 
They may be limited. Of course, being able to get to work 
may be difficult or impossible. Schools and daycare 
centers may be closed. And medical care for people who 
have chronic illness could be disrupted. That’s particularly 
important because hospitals and doctors’ offices will be 
overwhelmed. So, if you have a chronic disease, it’s 
advisable to talk to your health care provider about how 
you’re going to insure adequate access to your 
medications and your health care. I would mention 
specifically if you’re receiving ongoing medical care like 
dialysis or chemotherapy. Talk with your health care 
provider about plans to continue that care during a 
pandemic. 

Now I don’t want to scare you, but I do want to give you 
some statistics about pandemics just to give you an idea of 
how severe they really are. We kind of erased pandemics 
from our collective national memory, if not world memory. 
But let me give you an idea of the last fatalities that were 
caused by the last 3 pandemics. The most recent one 
occurred in 1968 and 69. This one was the least severe. It 
caused 34,000 US deaths and 700,000 deaths worldwide. 
In 1957and 58, there was a moderately severe pandemic, 
moderately severe. It caused at least 70,000 US deaths 
and one to two million deaths worldwide. Here comes the 
scariest statistic, in 1918 and 1919, there was the most 
severe pandemic we have on recent record. That caused 
675,000 deaths in United Sates and up to 50 million deaths 
worldwide. It’s just an astonishing statistic and it’s 
important to know the facts, so you know what to expect. 
And I won’t talk a lot more about pandemic flu now. A 
really good resource if you’re interested is a website that I’ll 
give you a little later at the end of this presentation. In fact, 
I’ll give it to you right now because that’s about all material 
I have and I’m running out of time. 

But in general I just like to say in closing that it repeats 
what I said in the beginning. This discussion is really meant 
to give you a starting point for developing your own 
personal comprehensive strategy, and just to give you food 
for thought. You need to develop your own resources and 
your own techniques for coping with this emergencies and 
disasters. And more importantly, once you develop them 
you need to practice them and keep them up to date.

So, I hope, certainly hope this has been helpful.  And I’ll 
just close by giving you some lists, a short list of email 
sites, websites, sorry not email sites, websites where you 
can access for more information. A good resource for 
information on pandemic flus is www dot pandemicflu dot 
gov and pandemic is spelled p-a-n-d-e-m-i-c-f-l-u dot g-o-v. 
A great resource about pandemic flus and I believe  
George has been kind enough to type up that website 
there on our text box. 

Another good resource is a website for the American 
Association of Poison Control Center, the AAPCC, and that 
is www dot AAPCC dot org. I certainly recommend that 
you visit the website for the American Red Cross National 
Head Quarters and that is www dot redcross dot org they 
have tons of great links and tools for devising your own 
disaster planning strategy. The Federal Emergency 
Management Agency. FEMA. That is www dot fema dot 
gov. Is a great resource. 

There’s 2 websites for resources about fire and fire 
prevention that I recommend. They are both published by 
the National Fire Prevention Association. The first is www 
dot nfpa dot org there’re lots of links on there about fire 
prevention and fire safety strategies. And then the same 
association publishes a children’s website called Risk 
Watch and that’s www dot riskwatch dot org and this is for 
kids. It includes not only information about fires and fire 
prevention but on disaster planning and other emergencies. 
It’s really a nice site for children. 
The American Council for The Blind I mentioned they had a 
publication about service animals, and their website is www 
dot acb dot org. And the Homeland Security Administration 
in The United States has a very helpful website which also 
includes resources for persons with disabilities information 
on disaster kits and evacuation planning. And their website 
is www dot ready dot gov. That’s www dot ready dot gov. 
Another information website for pandemic flus is the Center 
for Disease Control website, and that is www dot cdc dot 
gov. I mentioned the National Oceanographic and 
Atmospheric Administration before. And they have a terrific 
website with all sorts of information in maps on weather 
and information on severe weather. It’s just a wonderful 
educational website. It’s great for kids as well. It’s www dot 
noaa dot gov. 

Well that concludes my discussion of emergency 
preparedness and disaster planning. I hope this has 
provided you with some kind of starting point. And I look 
forward to hearing your comments. And thank you so much 
for joining me.

Audience: 
Frank from Albany, New York. Just want to bring up one 
point. I am a retired 911 supervisor in Albany County, 
Albany, New York. You’re talking about contact list. It’s 
also a good idea to have the 7 digit number of your local 
emergency agency, police or fire that you might be able to 
use.  If you have to get important information that might 
not be needed for an immediate emergency so you’re not 
tying up to the 911 line for people who may really really 
need it to report an actual emergency.

Ed: 
Thank you. That’s very helpful.

Audience: 
I was wondering, Mr. Haines. What does the Q stand for in 
the acronym QUID with regards to you’re the topic of 
tornados?

Ed: The Q stands for quickly. In another words you need to 
get under in and down as quickly as humanly possible.

Audience: 
Ed, we’ve got a question here from Eugene asking during a 
tornado or hurricane, should you turn off the gas and 
electric?

Ed: 
Certainly, if you can get to your gas main and your electric 
main, I would advise that you turn it off.

Audience: 
I have a question. If I’m taking public transportation, if I’m 
either on my way to somewhere or coming back home, and 
I’m on the bus all of a sudden I hear on the radio that 
there’s a tornado warning. What do I do in that case if I’m 
on the bus on my way home and no where close to home?

Ed: 
Well, first I would advise you to let the driver of the bus 
know that you’ve heard that information. The driver needs 
to have an access to that. And then make sure he 
understands the importance of pulling over as quickly as 
possible near some kind of shelter.

Audience: 
My question, Mr. Haines, is this. What about carbon 
monoxide poisoning, that’s what I am curious about. What 
about that, even after a furnace has been checked? Is 
there any way that body can tell on symptoms on carbon 
monoxide poisoning of any kind since it’s not visible or any 
thing of that sort Sir?

Moderator: 
Ed, your response didn’t come through.

Ed: 
I’m sorry. I’ll try to respond again. Let me know if it doesn’t 
come through. You’ve touched on some thing that I didn’t 
mention in my presentation for reasons of time. But it’s 
certainly is an important idea and that is having proper 
carbon monoxide detectors in the home. As far as I know 
there is no way to detect the presence of carbon monoxide 
physiologically until it’s too late.

Moderator: 
Chris, I’m sorry. We cannot hear your question?

Chris: 
I was just going to make a comment. Are you hearing me 
now? 

Moderator: 
Yes, we can hear you, Chris. Go ahead.

Chris: 
In the case of a pandemic flu, one of the things that some 
of many local people here have been discussing is it’s 
probably a good idea to have some disposable facemasks 
that you can wear to protect yourself from others and 
protect others from you. They’re saying that they may 
require people to wear those in public places in the event 
of a pandemic.

Ed: 
Yes, I’ve read some discussion about disposable 
facemasks. It’s still up for grabs as to whether they will 
work. They certainly can’t do any harm. The danger of 
pandemic flu is it’s incredibly contagious. And often even 
the most rigorous prevention procedures don’t prevent 
infections.

Moderator: 
Ed, there was a text message question asking how long 
you can safely keep water in the plastic bottles?

Ed: 
Yes, there was a question about how long you can keep 
water in the plastic bottles that you’ve prepared. I’m 
assuming that was the question refers to. I would 
recommend that you renew the water. Don’t keep it in the 
bottles any longer than six months. Now commercially 
prepared bottle water you can keep longer. Usually, 
actually it has an expiration date. But if you prepare the 
water yourself, don’t leave in those bottles longer than six 
months.

Moderator:  
Ed, two comments that have come up on the text board 
here.  One of them posted saying it’s important to take 
photos of yourself, your family and your pets, and have 
them on hand in case of a disaster strike. Perhaps you 
want to elaborate on that. Someone did mention the ice, 
the I-C-E. Would you like to mention that? ... on the cell 
phone …I-C-E.

Ed: 
I think it’s a terrific idea to have photos of yourself and your 
pet or your family so that you can find them after a disaster 
hits. That’s a great idea and something that I think 
everyone should consider. I’m not actually familiar with the 
I-C-E on the cell phones. So perhaps the questioner could 
elaborate on that.

Moderator: 
Ed, I think that’s referring to the in case of emergency you 
can list your contact information on your cell phones. So 
anyone emergency personnel finding your cell phone looks 
to see if you have an I-C-E entry on your phone. And that 
would be the primary contact … if you’re unable to speak 
for example.

Ed: 
Oh thank you. Yes. That’s not a bad idea at all and I’ve 
had other students refer to that.

Moderator: 
Meg, I’m sorry you’re not coming through. Do we have any 
other questions for Ed?

Audience: 
I was just wondering if you carry medical information with 
you, would it be important to note on there that you are 
blind?  Would that be confusing for emergency personnel, 
if you were unconscious?

Ed: 
You know, that’s an interesting question and no one’s 
asked that before. I guess I don’t have a real positive 
answer for you except that I think if you are unconscious, 
emergency personnel are going to be treating your 
symptoms and you’re not going to be necessarily worried 
about any other disability. Particularly, if that disability is 
not really a medical condition and it doesn’t affect your 
overall health.

Audience: 
I just asked because I didn’t know if it’s important for 
personnel to look at your eyes if those give any clues about 
your condition or anything like that because I have artificial 
eyes.

Ed: 
Well, I would hope that most emergency personnel are 
trained well enough to notice someone who uses 
prosthesis but some prosthesis are very good. Sometimes 
it’s hard to tell. I think they look for multitudes of symptoms 
at different areas. It would be my guess that eyes would be 
only one of them. Some people are blind and have eyes 
that appear to be very typical. So saying that you’re blind 
might not be giving them any relevant information. But in 
your case I can understand why you asked the question.

Audience: 
It might be good though if you … as soon as you regain 
consciousness for them to know why you weren’t looking at 
them or focusing or anything.  I would think it would be 
information that could possibly be helpful to them. I don’t 
think it would hurt to put it if you wanted to. I think the more 
information you can give them on your personal 
information, the better they can treat you. 

Audience:
It probably wouldn’t hurt that. At the same time they notice 
you’re not making eye contact and that in itself should be 
enough to alert them to the fact … oh, she must be blind.

Ed: 
Well, I think the original questioner was concerned about 
what if someone is unconscious and people are looking in 
the eyes for vital signs. In that case, not giving someone 
eye contact might not be as important.

Moderator: 
Ed, there’s a question here from Laura asking how 
important is it to have a carbon monoxide detector?

Ed: 
It’s very important. You should definitely have one or two. 
Carbon monoxide unlike smoke doesn’t necessarily rise. 
You don’t need to have it at the top of a stairway to a 
basement for instance because it may collect in the 
basement first, if you have a furnace in the basement. 
They’re very important there’s something I really didn’t 
touch on because they just for purposes of time I suppose. 
But I recommend you have them. You know, another thing 
that I didn’t touch on are radon detectors and that’s 
another choice that you might want to make for your home 
to make sure that your family is not being exposed to 
radon gas.

Moderator: 
Great points there and Laura also mentions here that it’s 
important for people to consider a medical ID tag or 
bracelet. Good point.

Audience: 
Mr. Haines, I just wanted to ask on that detector. Is there 
any brands that you recommend? I got one that I bought 
from Wal-Mart that got batteries, got fire and smoke, and 
carbon monoxide detecting. But do you have any specific 
brands or any websites where we can check out different 
brands or types that would be better than others?

Ed: 
You know, I really don’t and I don’t feel comfortable 
recommending any specific brands. Only to say to make 
sure they’re UL approved. UL stands for Underwriters 
Laboratory. That agency sets a specific standard for things 
like electrical cords or smoke detectors etc. So just make 
sure it’s UL approved. As far as I know those combination 
detectors you’re talking about are fine. The only 
reservation I have about them is that if your battery goes 
out and you forget to change your battery, both of your 
detectors are now inoperable not just one. So if you have 2 
separate detectors with 2 separate batteries, it’s more a 
pain to keep those batteries changed and up-to-date. But 
you know that if the battery goes out on one, you’ll still 
have the ability to use the other.

Audience: 
Thank you. I just want to say that I’ve enjoyed this 
seminar. I’ve enjoyed your seminars that you’ve given here 
and a lot of things I did not know. Thank you very much 
there. They’ll be very helpful. I live alone so it’s been very 
helpful to me. Thank you very much, Mr. Haines.

Audience: 
Thank you very much Mr. Haines for this too because this 
has been a lot of help for me since I live alone. And I’ve 
been wondering too as to the possibility of looking into 
getting one of those caller things. That say.. if you slip in 
the home and you hurt yourself, break a leg or something 
and you can’t get to the phone to call 911. You press the 
button and then it makes contact with the emergency 
service.

Ed:
That’s a good point. Those are great services. I always 
recommend folks to talk to their physician about receiving 
that service for a couple reasons. Physicians and then 
subsequently physical therapists that may be within their 
practice know which services work best in your community. 
And also if you have a medical reason for needing such a 
service often then that service can be paid for by Medicare 
or health insurance if a doctor orders it. So I always 
recommend to folks who are thinking about getting that 
service. Talk to your doctor.

Audience: 
This is Marshall again. How often should food be recycled 
like if you get MREs or something? And also wouldn’t it be 
nice to have a pair of gloves … heavy duty gloves? So if 
you are in an earthquake, you are not reaching around and 
finding all kinds of pointy things.

Ed: 
I agree with you with regard the food. Most food has an 
expiration date on it including MREs. I would abide by 
those expiration dates. Different foods have different dates. 
It depends whether they’re freeze dried etc. And you’re 
absolutely right a heavy duty pair of gloves is a great idea. 
And I’ve really that reminds me jogs my memory. I forgot 
to mention it’s not a bad idea to have a box of disposable 
of rubber gloves or latex gloves as well. They are great for 
avoiding contaminations so good point. Both sturdy gloves 
and latex gloves are good thing to have in your disaster kit.

Audience: 
One of my questions is if there was an earthquake wouldn’t 
it be kind of like if there was debris everywhere? Wouldn’t 
be safer if like a sighted person looked at the situation 
before you, like, moved around?

Ed:
Well, I would put a caveat to that and just say it would be 
safer to have a professional to look around. If you have 
any doubts about your structure at all or the safety of any 
structure that you’re in. Have a professional check it out if 
you can. If you have any questions about your own ability 
to appropriately check out a structure and you think a 
sighted person would help by all means use a sighted 
person. The basic idea is use anything and everyone you 
can to make sure you’re staying safe.

Audience: 
In regarding to earthquakes, they used to say get under a 
doorway. They used to say your doorways were the best 
support in the house, to get in the arch of the doorway. Is 
that not the recommended procedure any more?

Ed: 
Few things I’ve read indicated that is not recommended 
anymore. I think doorways used to be much more solidly 
constructed many years ago than they are now. And they 
were subsequently safer places. I’ve read some recent 
things that say doorways are no more safe than other 
places in the home. And an interior corner is actually safer 
than a doorway. 

Audience: 
Only thought is… when the earthquake is over I can get 
the heck out.

Ed: 
That’s very true.

Audience: 
I have a question regarding tornados. Can I speak now?

Ed: 
Please go ahead.

Audience:  
I once heard years ago that if there’s a tornado coming that 
you should have a window slightly open. Is there any truth 
to that?

Ed: 
As far as I know that’s no longer a recommended 
procedure. I think the idea was the wind would a kind of 
blow through the home. And if you had two windows open 
and it wouldn’t cause as much damage to the house 
because it would have a way to get through the house. As 
far as I know that’s not entirely true. In fact the best to 
keep the windows shut to avoid any debris that may be 
flying around although the debris certainly go right through 
window but small debris a shut window will keep on the 
outside. But the general rule is to stay away from all 
windows in times of a tornado. 

Audience: 
I work in emergency agency services and I’ve through a 
number of tornado preparedness seminars. And not only is 
it not a good idea to open them because of the debris but 
you don’t want to take the time in a tornado and you don’t 
have the time. You get to your basement or to your 
designated area of protection just as quickly as you could 
possibly do it.

Audience: 
That reminds me. We’re having a condominium association 
meeting in a couple of weeks and I’m gonna ask them if we 
should ever have any warning of a tornado in the future. 
We had one several years ago but fortunately, it didn’t 
touch down. But if we should ever have one in the future 
our condominiums being build the way they are what would 
be the best place to go for shelters, especially if you’re 
inside one?

Ed: 
You know that’s a great idea to have a plan. And 
sometimes condominium associations even designate 
tornado monitors that are responsible for making sure 
everyone else is warned that may or may not be practical 
depending on the layout of your condominium, but it’s 
certainly a value topic to bring up to your association.

Audience: 
If they have a community center or rec center that might 
be a good place to go if it’s a good sturdy building but here 
again if you have the time. 

Moderator: 
Ed, Meg posts a comment here that suggests that people 
get involved in their local meeting emergency planning 
committees because often the needs of people with visual 
impairments and I would assume all sorts of disabilities 
aren’t necessarily taken into consideration, particularly 
transportation needs. So, that’s a point that Meg has made 
for us. One question here, Ed, I’m not sure if you can 
answer this because I’m not sure this is standard. But the 
question is … is there a way to interpret what the siren 
means and are there different types?

Ed: 
I think that depends on your area, your township etc. I 
think the only one that can answer that questions for your 
individual location are the emergency authorities in your 
areas. That’s a question I would direct to your community 
resources.

Audience: 
You mentioned that in the event of a tornado you have 
hardly any problem whatsoever to get to a safe place. If 
you’re at one end of the house and you know the safest 
place is in the bathroom and you know that you just heard 
that a tornado warning was just issued seconds later the 
tornado touches down where you can’t even get to a safe 
location. What would you recommend in that situation?

Ed: 
Well, I have two part answers to that question. The first is 
that this relates back to my point about making sure you 
can access community emergency information at all 
appropriate times if you know there’s a tornado warning. 
The minute you hear an announcement of that warning 
that’s the time to proceed to the safest spot in your home, 
not to wait at to the time when you perceive a tornado is 
actually about to touch down. However, if you’re unaware 
that there is a tornado warning if you’ve been asleep at 
night etc and you’re woken up to violent weather and you 
perceive that you’re about to be hit by a tornado and you 
can’t make it to your safe area. Then again follow those 4 
letters, quickly, under, in and down.  So act quickly and try 
to get under something or in a protected area. Or again if 
you can’t make it down to the basement, just try to get 
under your bed that at least.

Audience: 
Just a suggestion, I live in an area where we can have 
tornados frequently and what I try to do is … first of all, I 
try to be aware.  Sometimes they know a day or two ahead 
of time that we have a possibility for severe weather. So, I 
keep that in mind. I also … if we have a bad storm going 
on which could spawn a tornado. I will sometimes go 
ahead and be in the hallway during the worst part of the 
storm especially because I got children I try to protect. And 
I’ve been known to gather little ones in the hallway and just 
play games and read them stories and stuff until the 
weather passes because that way … and you have the 
mattress handy and everybody knows what they need to 
do if a tornado warning is sounded. So, I make sure I’m not 
on the other end of the house.

Ed: 
I think that a terrific example of good preparedness. Thank 
you.

Audience: 
I’ve also heard that if you get into a bathtub provided you 
got no other place of safety when a tornado is due to touch 
down because of the warning. Is that really as safe a spot 
as what I heard claimed or not?

Ed: 
Well, I think the bathtub is recommended probably just 
because it’s a place that has no windows usually, no 
windows for instance, and often bathrooms are in interior 
rooms. They tend to be safer. In older homes, bathrooms 
are often surrounded by a lot of cast iron plumbing, which 
is very sturdy. That isn’t always true now in modern homes 
and also bathtubs used to be ceramic or made iron 
covered ceramic. They’re pretty sturdy things. That also 
isn’t as true any more. But bathrooms in general away from 
any kind of windows are safer. There’s a little more 
framing, construction framing around a bathroom that 
makes it to safer place as well.

Moderator: 
Ed we’re down to our final couple of minutes. So, I’m 
wondering if we have one or two final questions before we 
wrap up for the afternoon.

Audience: 
This is Dr.Thomas Bello from Michigan … Ed, can you 
hear me?

Ed: 
Yes I can hear you… you’re a little distorted, but you’re 
coming in fine.

Audience: 
Ok well thank you very much I’ll keep it brief. First of all I 
want to say hello to a fellow Michiganian. I am a professor 
at the Ferris State University in Michigan. And I’m visually 
impaired. I’m teaching a course on the sociology of 
disasters and emergency preparedness for the Ferris State 
University students. And this class has given me great 
material for a unit that I’m going to do in that course in the 
beginning of April on emergency preparedness, personal 
emergency preparedness. And I just want to thank you for 
it.

Ed: 
Well, thank you so much that’s really gratifying. Hadley has 
done a great thing by having this course available.

Audience: 
Yes, it has and I’m just about ready to start the fourth list.

Ed: 
That’s great, Ellen.

Audience: 
I’ve worked emergency communications off and on for 
years. I’m a hand radio operator. I’ve been to more first aid 
and disaster classes than I care to remember. But even 
having done all of that and said all of that I still picked up 
some tips today of things that I hadn’t thought about. So, 
thank you very much and I will add those to my bag of 
tricks. And hopefully, be even better prepared in the future.

Ed: 
Well, you’re very welcome. Thank you for that comment.

Dawn Turco: 
This is Dawn Turco I’m the Senior Vice President at 
Hadley. And I just want to thank you all for those most 
recent comments. Especially, we are proud of this course. 
And we’re especially proud of the way that Ed Haines 
teaches it and I agree with you all he’s done a wonderful 
job today. This is his first seminar so I know he was bit 
nervous, but we appreciate your coming and listening for 
this … this lengthier than usual seminar at Hadley. So 
Thank you everyone and for your question.

George Abbott: This is George Abbott. I would like to 
remind everybody that this seminar will be available on our 
website next week by going to the Hadley dot edu website 
and going under Events and there you will find a link to this 
as well as our previous seminars. Many of which we do try 
to keep an hour. This one because of the importance of the 
content and we didn’t want to shorten it too much. This one 
went a bit longer than typical but a wonderful presentation, 
Ed. Thank you very much. And for anyone who’s interested 
in taking the Safety in the Home course that Ed teaches. 
It’s really a wonderful course and we urge you to get in 
touch with us here at Hadley either at www dot Hadley dot 
edu or by calling us at 800-323-4238

Audience: 
I’m currently in the Safety in the Home course. As I was 
listening to him talk a lot of it was reminding me of the 
course what I’m learning in it so it’s pretty good course.

Ed: 
Well, thank you all so much for being such great 
participants. I really enjoy this opportunity to share this 
information with you. Again I appreciate the opportunity 
and I appreciate Hadley for giving me the opportunity as 
well. Thank you.