Week 6: Disaster Preparedness

Week 6: Disaster Preparedness Visit the website . Review the steps for being prepared for a disaster. As a community health nurse, what elements do you think are important to stress to the community? How is your community preparing for a potential disaster, or how has it prepared? Respond This section lists options that can be used to view responses. Collapse All Print View Show Options Responses Responses are listed below in the following order: response, author and the date and time the response is posted. Sort by Read/Unread Sort by Response Sorted Ascending, click to sort descending Sort by Author Sort by Date/Time* (an instructor response) Collapse Mark as Unread Disaster Preparedness Instructor Hamilton Email this Author 2/18/2015 8:55:50 PM Hello Class, The Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) website provides excellent information through their own Be Prepared web page for the National Preparedness Month every September and it’s a great resource to share as we are focusing on Disaster Preparedness in this discussion. Post 9/11 the state health department had the county health departments develop Homeland Security Bioterrorism task forces to educate the community on how to prepare for a natural or other disaster. Health Departments developed teams of staff and invited key stakeholders from the community level to participate. One of the criteria to memberships was to demonstrate that each staff/stakeholder had a personal plan so when called to duty there were no worries about personal issues….now ask yourself do you have a plan…is this a sound plan and what needs to be part of the plan…here is a web site for your to answer some of those questions and prepare. Please share your thoughts and what you found on the site, see you in class!~Dr Hamilton Link - Class: You may begin posting in this TD on Sunday, April 5, 2015 for credit. Respond Collapse Mark as Unread RE: Disaster Preparedness Arthel Tamakloe Email this Author 4/9/2015 9:21:39 PM Planning for natural disaster ensures that resources are available and that roles and responsibilities of all personnel and agencies are delineated. (p.568). As nurses we must be ready and be prepared for any emergencies. So monthly disaster drills can be conduct to prepare us for disasters. Monthly disaster drills will help us to know the organizational plan and to stay informed during the disaster. As nurses when we are properly trained, this helps us to ensure that in any type of disaster, we will have organized and effective medical care. As a community health nurse we can also educate the community and our patients how to prepare for natural disaster by conducting drills with them as well. Nies, M. A., & McEwen, M. (2011). Community/Public health nursing: Promoting the health of populations (5th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Saunders/Elsevier. Respond Edit (an instructor response) Collapse Mark as Read RE: Disaster Preparedness Instructor Hamilton Email this Author 4/10/2015 8:55:00 PM Thanks for the post Arthel. There were tornadoes last night and this took 2 lives and 70 homes. The governor is involved and many online cites are collecting money for the victims. I am hoping they are monitoring the legitimacy of the cites.~Dr Hamilton Respond Collapse Mark as Unread Disaster Prep Jessica Parker Email this Author 4/5/2015 9:28:34 AM Instructor Hamilton & Class: The most important step for being prepared for disaster is to have a plan of what to do. Knowing what to do in a disaster will help prevent chaos and provide for quicker recovery - "more lives can be saved and less property is damaged" (Nies & McEwen, p. 567). Our community needs to be educated on potential disasters (risks for tornadoes are high in the spring in our area). Families need to be prepared and have a plan of how to find each other if they were to be separated (FEMA, n.d.) and to practice with children. School nurses & teachers help children prepare & practice in case of disaster or possible shooting at the local schools. Our community uses a tornado siren & tests it weekly to help alert members of the community. Our smartphones now have alerts that alarm when there is an emergency in the area - flooding, amber alert, storm warnings. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). (n.d.). Retrieved from Chamberlain College of Nursing. (2015). NR-443 Week 6: Environmental Health [Online lesson]. Downers Grove, IL: DeVry Education Group. Nies, M. A., & McEwen, M. (2011). Community/Public health nursing: Promoting the health of populations (5th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Saunders/Elsevier. Respond (an instructor response) Collapse Mark as Read RE: Disaster Prep Instructor Hamilton Email this Author 4/6/2015 6:15:42 PM Jessica community members who do not listen or heed warnings create many more issues for the rescuer and pull them away from the tasks at hand rescuer agencies in the west during the fires were informing people they could face fines and arrest if not mandatory evacuating and there was no guarantee when if they survived the rescuers would be back. The belief "it cannot happen to me" or "I can handle this" is denial we watch a gentleman on his roof with a garden hose as the hillside was on fire and coming rapidly...a garden hose was not the answer materials are replaceable, life is not. Great post~Dr Hamilton Respond Collapse Mark as Unread RE: Disaster Prep Rachel Foreman Email this Author 4/6/2015 6:41:40 PM Jessica, class, and Professor Hamilton. Thank you for your post, I enjoyed reading it. This shows how every community is different. In so many ways we can relate to the next community but everyone has their own issues. Living in Florida we do have to be prepared for not only tornados but also hurricanes, flooding, and fires. Luckily we don't have to add earthquakes to that list! Rachel Respond Collapse Mark as Read RE: Disaster Prep Pamela Mintz Email this Author 4/6/2015 7:02:21 PM Rachel - Do you have to add sinkholes to that list now?! You always hear about the "usuals", like fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and flooding, but I remember not too long ago reading about sinkholes in the state of Florida. I remember the one where they could not find the brother that was living inside the house when it sunk. The pictures were incredible from there - I had never seen anything like it before that incident. But I do remember hearing about them more frequently since that major one. All these natural disasters are scary! And I say this as I am married to the guy that goes running INTO burning buildings, instead of running out of them! Pam Respond (an instructor response) Collapse Mark as Read RE: Disaster Prep Instructor Hamilton Email this Author 4/7/2015 12:28:29 PM Pam that is interesting! I saw a huge one from Kentucky I believe which swallowed a corvette business...any area which is undermined has this potential and this also is available on the local websites for environmental facts as this affects insurance rates and building permits.~Dr Hamilton Respond Collapse Mark as Read RE: Disaster Prep Jeremy Langley Email this Author 4/9/2015 6:49:23 PM Pam, Dr. Hamilton, and Class, Great point about sink holes. My father is an environmental engineer and he has told me that another reason these sink holes occur is the type of soil that is under the home's foundation. They are now performing soil test in some areas to make sure the soil can withstand the weight of a house although there is no guarantee. The loose sandy soil under a thin layer of hard soil is a factor so the soil samples have to be tested at a certain depth. I also wanted to add that major snow and ice storms can be consider a disaster. I live in Georgia and we had one of the largest snow and ice storms in history just last year and thousands of motorist were stranded for 20 plus hours on the interstate because the thy could not make it home and several ran out of gas or just pulled over. The delay by the state and city officials in getting the much needed weather information out to the public was a main cause of this. There were numerous changes made I how we plan and implement. Many people now carry emergency kit in their car where they did not before this. They even started calling it "snowmageddan 2014" and the state officials and public are now more educated on the need for emergency planning and getting the weather information out quickly and in a standardized way. Several days after the ice storms, hundreds of cars were still sitting in the median of all our major interstates and it looked like scene out of a movie where everyone just vanished. Respond Collapse Mark as Read Disaster Preparedness Christina Segura Email this Author 4/5/2015 5:08:14 PM Professor and Class, “Nurses using their knowledge of nursing, public health, and cultural-familial structures, as well as their clinical skills and abilities, can actively assist or participate in all aspects and stages of an emergency or disaster, regardless of the setting in which the event may occur” (Nies & McEwen, 2011). Per the NOAA (2011), potential disastrous hazards to this community include tornadoes, hurricanes, severe thunderstorms, flooding, and extreme heat. “More importantly, as the charts below show, Alabama experiences more tornado related fatalities than any other state, and ranks fifth in the number of “killer tornadoes” when compared to other states. According to Storm Prediction Center records, between 1980 and 2009, Alabama experienced 38 killer tornadoes, which resulted in 165 fatalities” (NOAA, 2011). Important elements of disaster preparedness that could be stressed by CHN include maximizing local awareness and organization of disaster preparedness activities in the community. Prioritization and goals should teach that, “Individuals must take seriously the responsibility of being prepared to survive for three days on their own, to create evacuation and shelter plans for themselves and their families and to get out of harm’s way when necessary” (FEMA, 2012). Additionally, the CHN would need to work in conjunction with the local military base. “Every military unit on the installation has an emergency management representative assigned to ensure the military members and their family members are informed of these actions” (FEMA, 2013). From personal experience, this relies heavily on information dissemination from the emergency management representative to military leaders and furthermore to supportive and most often volunteer personnel and spouses. In light of other military priorities and a largely transient population, the information does not reach all members of the community. The CHN could help to develop a system of standard information distribution amongst the transient military population, local community members, and newcomers. In 2007, this community was devastated by a killer tornado that tore apart the high school, killing several students and faculty. Since then, state of the art shelters have been built in the local schools to aid in tornado and other severe weather preparedness. Tornado sirens are also now taken more seriously and other broadcast efforts via smartphone applications have been implemented. Christina FEMA. (October 31, 2013). Military Family Preparedness. Retrieved from FEMA. (July 30, 2013). Community Preparedness. Retrieved from FEMA. (November 1, 2012). Set Goals. Retrieved from Nies, M., & McEwen, M. (2011). Community/Public Health Nursing: Promoting the Health of Populations, 5th Edition. [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from NOAA, National Weather Service. (January 10, 2011). Alabama All Hazards Awareness. Retrieved from Respond (an instructor response) Collapse Mark as Read RE: Disaster Preparedness Instructor Hamilton Email this Author 4/6/2015 6:17:12 PM