Emergency Preparedness

Every household should have a basic emergency kit that can sustain your family for at least 72 hours without power, water service, or access to stores. Keep it in an easy-to-reach location that everyone in the household knows about.

Essentials:

• Water. One gallon per person per day, for at least 3 days. Don't forget water for pets.
• Food. Three-day supply of non-perishable food that doesn't require cooking or refrigeration. Canned goods (with a manual can opener), peanut butter, crackers, granola bars, dried fruit.
• Flashlights and batteries. At least one per family member. Headlamps are especially useful. Avoid relying on candles.
• Battery-powered or hand-crank radio. For weather updates and emergency broadcasts when the power is out and cell service is unreliable.
• First aid kit. Bandages, gauze, adhesive tape, antiseptic wipes, tweezers, over-the-counter pain reliever, and any prescription medications your family takes regularly.
• Phone chargers. A portable battery bank, kept charged. A car charger as a backup.
• Important documents. Copies of IDs, insurance policies, and medical information in a waterproof bag or container.

Also recommended:

• Warm blankets or sleeping bags
• Extra clothing and sturdy shoes
• Whistle (to signal for help)
• Dust masks and work gloves
• Garbage bags and zip ties (sanitation, waterproofing)
• Cash in small bills (ATMs and card readers won't work without power)
• Supplies for infants, elderly family members, or pets as applicable

Check your kit twice a year. Changing the clocks is a good reminder. Replace expired food, water, medications, and batteries.

This is one of the simplest and most important things you can do. If we can't find your house, we can't help you. Seconds matter in an emergency, and time spent looking for your address is time we are not helping you.

Your house number should be:

• Visible from the road. Mounted where a driver can see it from the street, not hidden behind a bush, porch post, or parked car.
• Large enough to read. Numbers should be at least 4 inches tall. Larger is better, especially if your house is set back from the road.
• High contrast. Light numbers on a dark background, or dark numbers on a light background. Reflective numbers or a reflective address sign are ideal. They show up in headlights at night.
• Lit or reflective. We respond at all hours. If your house number isn't visible at night, we may not be able to find you quickly. A simple solar-powered address light or reflective mailbox numbers can make a huge difference.
• On your mailbox too. If your mailbox is at the road, put your number on both sides so it's visible from either direction.
• Clear of snow. A plow can bury a number at the road in one pass, and a sign that was easy to read in October can be gone by February. When you clear the driveway, clear the sign and the mailbox too.

Rural addresses and long driveways: If your house is far from the road or on a shared driveway, put a reflective address sign at the road where your driveway meets the street. This is critical in rural parts of McKean where homes can be hundreds of feet from the road.

Go outside tonight, stand at the road, and look at your house. Can you read the number? Could you read it from a moving vehicle at night? Reflective numbers and an address sign cost very little.

Children as young as 3 can learn basic fire safety. Keep it simple, practice regularly, and never assume they'll remember in a crisis without rehearsal.

Core lessons by age:

Ages 3-5:

• Firefighters are helpers. They wear big gear and masks. This can look scary, but they're there to help. Show your kids pictures of firefighters in full gear so they won't hide from them.
• Fire isn't a toy. Matches and lighters are for adults only. If you find matches or a lighter, don't touch them. Tell a grown-up.
• "Get low and go." If there's smoke, crawl on the floor to get out.

Ages 5-10:

• How to call 911. Practice on a toy phone only. Never practice on a real phone, even an old one with no service. An old phone can still reach 911 for real, and then help gets sent when nobody needs it. Teach them to say their name, address, and what's wrong, and make sure they know their home address by heart.
• Stop, drop, and roll. If your clothes catch fire: stop (don't run), drop to the ground, cover your face, and roll to smother the flames.
• Escape plan. Walk them through your home's escape routes. Practice getting out of every bedroom. Pick a meeting spot outside (the mailbox, a specific tree). Practice at least twice a year.
• Feel the door. Before opening a closed door during a fire, feel it with the back of your hand. If it's hot, don't open it. Use another way out.

Ages 10+:

• That fire extinguishers are for adults, not children; a kid's job is alerting an adult, getting out, and calling 911
• What to do if they're babysitting and there's a fire (get the kids out first, then call 911 from outside)
• How to recognize a gas leak (rotten egg smell) and what to do (leave, don't use light switches, call 911 from outside)

The most important thing: Get out and stay out. Teach your children to never go back inside a burning building for any reason, not for a pet, not for a toy, not for a phone. Firefighters will go in. That's our job.

If you or someone in your household has a disability, uses a wheelchair, needs oxygen, or has limited mobility, extra planning can make a critical difference in an emergency.

Escape planning:

• Identify two ways out of every room, and make sure both are accessible. If a window is a secondary exit, can the person physically get to it and through it?
• Sleep on the ground floor if possible. Getting down stairs during a fire is extremely difficult with limited mobility. If you must be upstairs, have a plan for how you'll get out (and make sure firefighters know you're there).
• Keep mobility aids close. Wheelchair, walker, prosthetics, glasses, hearing aids. Keep them within arm's reach of the bed. In an emergency, you need them immediately.
• Practice. Run through your escape plan regularly, including at night when visibility is low.

Alert systems:

• Install smoke alarms with both audible alarms and strobe lights or bed-shaker attachments for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
• Consider a medical alert device (wearable button) that can call for help if you can't reach a phone.

Let responders know:

• Tell 911 dispatchers about mobility limitations when you call. This helps us plan our approach and bring the right equipment.
• Tell your neighbors. Let at least one trusted neighbor know about your situation so they can tell firefighters when they arrive.
• Tell us. Give us a call on the station line and say who and where. It is worth us knowing before the night it matters.

If you use medical equipment that requires electricity (oxygen concentrators, CPAP machines, powered wheelchairs), have a backup plan for power outages. Contact your utility company to be placed on their priority notification list for outages.

Make an escape plan and practice it. That's the single most impactful thing you can do today.

It takes about 15 minutes and costs nothing:

1. Walk through every room in your house. Identify two ways out of each room, usually a door and a window. Make sure windows open easily and aren't blocked by furniture or security bars without quick-release latches.
2. Pick a meeting spot outside. Somewhere specific and easy to remember. The mailbox, a neighbor's driveway, a big tree in the yard. This is where everyone goes after getting out. It lets you quickly figure out if someone is still inside.
3. Practice at night. Most fatal home fires happen between 11 PM and 7 AM when people are asleep. Practice your escape plan in the dark at least once. Can everyone get out of their bedroom, down the hall, and outside without being able to see clearly?
4. Test your smoke alarms. Push the test button on every alarm in your house right now. If it doesn't beep, replace the battery. If it still doesn't work, replace the alarm. You need working smoke alarms on every level of your home and inside every bedroom.

After that, do these when you have time:

• Build a basic emergency kit (see our emergency kit checklist above)
• Make sure your house number is visible from the road
• Talk to your children about what to do in a fire
• Know where your gas shutoff, water shutoff, and electrical panel are

You don't need to do everything at once. But do the escape plan and the smoke alarms today. Those two save the most lives.