| A common ARES question, “what personal items do I need to take when sent to a disaster”? The short answer, take everything you would need to survive on a camping trip for a week, plus some disaster specific items. Our Go-Kits need to be always on our minds and ready to Go. A complete Go-Kit will help us provide better support to our served agencies. Your kit will need to be tailored to meet your specific needs but this is a suggested minimum content list for your personal “Go-kit”. Prepare and test your Kit well before-hand, as you may need to hit the ground running when called. The idea of your personal kit is to help you survive, be more conformable and protect yourself from unknowns the best you can. We cannot be productive nor do our job if we are a burden on the system. Your communications/equipment “Go-Kit” would be a separate list, remember to register with your local EC and never self-deploy to a disaster. Training cards: Training cards/certificates are very important items to take with you. Train before the event and be ready for a local or large-scale disaster. Cross-training is a good idea. Take your ARRL, various training cards and FEMA training certificates with you. Laminate your training cards to protect them. Minimal training includes FEMA IS-100, IS-200, IS-700, IS-800 and ARRL EC-001, EC-002 and EC-003. We are finding that our served agencies are requiring volunteers to have certain training and experience under their belt before deploying them. Training will help you to know the lingo, procedures and processes. Red Cross First Aid and CPR training is also a must. A good way to get general training is to enroll in the next Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) class. Then, take the Red Cross training, and all the while, take the ARRL and FEMA Independent Study online courses, one at a time. Vaccinations and medications: Tetanus, Hepatitis-A, Hepatitis-B, TB all are recommended vaccinations. Check with your doctor to make sure you get the right shots. Personal prescription medications (copies of all prescriptions, including the generic names for medications, and a note from the prescribing physician on letterhead stationary for controlled substances and injectable medications should be carried). Relief workers should plan for travel with the knowledge that there may be shortages of electricity, safe water, or food distribution systems in affected areas. They should try to pack to be as self-sufficient as possible and bring only those items necessary for their trip. Confined or little travel space for your “Go-Kit” might be necessary. In addition to a basic travel kit, relief workers should bring the following items:
The idea is to prevent you from becoming a problem in the disaster relief effort. Besides the new requirements and challenges are placed on amateur radio operators, we must show our professional side in this facet of our hobby. 73, Greg Sarratt, W4OZK |
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Disaster "Go-Kits"posted Aug 25, 2008 7:40 PM by Domain Administrator [ updated Aug 25, 2008 7:50 PM ] |
Even though this is a pretty exhaustive list, I bet there are some things in your go-kit that aren't listed here. If you can think of something else, leave it in a comment!