QuickTips for July – Important Information Needed After A Disaster

QuickTips for July – Important Information Needed After A Disaster: "

Think of what information you will need to carry on after a disaster. Much, but not all, of our important information today is stored in our computers. Copies of this information should be kept in a safe place such as a safe deposit box, at a relative’s house, outside the house with other disaster supplies or in a go-bag. Thumb drives could be very useful to store this information. If you are not computer capable, make do with copy machines.

Here is a list of items to get you started:

• Wills, insurance policies (home and autos), mortgage papers, deeds, Passports, driver licenses and credit cards (both sides), social security and medicare cards


• Birth, marriage, divorce and death certificates


• Bank and Brokerage account numbers and institution names


• Important phone numbers and addresses


• Health policy numbers and immunization records

You will also need information to file claims with FEMA and insurance companies. The sooner you can file, the sooner you will receive funds to begin rebuilding. This advice can save you MAJOR time and money.

To help support your claims you should have:

• Photos of every room, every closet, cupboard, drawer and cabinet as well as the exterior of the house and autos. These are the “before” photos so you can prove damage.

While you are gathering all of these “official” items, you might also want to store a copy of all of those digital family photos to protect family memories.

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Mira Mesa Team Newsletter 7/12/11

Good morning, here is the news:

Team Meeting— 10 August, 6:00pm—7:00pm.  We have space reserved at the Senior Center.  I'm thinking we will work on triage fundamentals, excepting those who just graduated from Academy, it has been awhile for many of us.  We'll do a review of the procedure, various marking methods, and then get right to practice.  I'll try to come up with something creative for practice, but I'll be going for brain-numbing repetition, this is one of those things that we all need to be able to just do without thinking about it too much, and for most of us there is only one way for that to happen.  Finally we'll try to squeeze in more time talking about National Preparedness Month.  If we have enough good ideas to discuss, then we'll put off the triage practice for October I think, and just work on our plans.

National Preparedness Month—Great meeting last Sunday, but we didn't get to put a lot of time in on this.  September is National Preparedness Month.  I understand that there is a media campaign being put in place for this.  Basically we have the opportunity to go out in the Community in our gear and promote personal/family preparedness as well as recruit for CERT.  With any luck at all we will have an Academy on the schedule by then (so I'm told) that we can use as a call to action.  There are a ton of possibilities, here are two to think about; if you know of an organization that is having a gathering, like a harvest festival or block party, perhaps we can set up a table there.  Or, if you are a member of a community-based organization, we might be able to get a few minutes at their September event/meeting to say a few words about preparedness and CERT.  If you want me to address your group, I'm happy to do that if I can squeeze it on my calendar.  Whatever you do, it needs to be approved in advance.  This won't be a big deal, the point is you should not pop up in the Community in your emergency kit when the SDFR/CERT doesn't know about it.  That's a bad thing.  Please remember we already have the Street Fair on 17 September, probably our best chance to hit a large local audience, so I hope you will mark your Calendar and make plans to join us then, we need all the CERT people we can get to really put on a show.  With any luck at all, we can get some decent rescue practice in with the deal.  Please send your ideas in, I'd love to see the next Academy start with about 40 locals in it, and remember, every person we can convince to do basic preparation is one more individual/family we may not have to rescue on the day.

That's all for this week, Battalion News follows, questions, comment, you know how to find me.