How to Stay Prepared for Hazards Year-Round
Hurricane season is almost over, but disaster preparedness is a year-round activity. Learn how to lessen your recovery time, including tips to prepare for the winter months.
Hurricane season extends through November 30, and while storms may be less frequent and intense in the last month of hurricane season, they are still hazardous and destructive. Many communities are continuing a long road to recovery from 2024 disasters.
No matter the time of year, it is imperative to sustain preparedness to all hazards including tropical weather, severe thunderstorms, flooding, cybersecurity, drought, and winter weather conditions. Taking continuous steps to prepare can help improve resilience and shorten response and recovery time when disasters occur.
The end of the calendar year is a great time to plan your preparedness activities for next year; establish a preparedness budget; and schedule plan updates, procurement of resources, training sessions, and emergency exercises. This article features tips for year-round preparedness, including preparations for winter weather.
Tips for Year-Round Preparedness
It is critical for you to take scheduled and deliberate actions that contribute to maintaining or increasing your preparedness. Specific actions and frequency depend on potential hazards to your area and available resources, but keep in mind an effective plan should be year-round, not just when a hazard is imminent. Here are a few general recommendations for actions you can take.
- Annually
- Assess your risk and vulnerabilities. Ask yourself: have they increased or decreased in the last year?
- Update your plans to incorporate best practices, lessons learned, and changes in resources.
- Quarterly
- Conduct training for stakeholders.
- Confirm regular equipment maintenance.
- Identify new resource needs.
Preparing for Winter Weather
Winter weather presents unique hazards which threaten power capabilities, sufficient heat, reliable communications, and safe transportation. Prepare for winter weather by putting together a family plan, business plan, and personal plan for your transportation vehicle. Here are a few general actions you can take now.
- Evaluate your building’s insulation to maintain comfortable temperatures.
- Inspect your home and office insulation needs. Pay particular attention to doors, windows, and attic/basement openings.
- Replace worn caulking, weather stripping, and insulation.
- Evaluate your heating source.
- Routine maintenance of heating sources increases the efficiency of the system and decreases the likelihood of maintenance-related failures.
- Create a back-up plan for staying warm during extended power outages or heating source failures.
- Inspect your water pipes and other external utilities.
- Learn freezing hazards for utilities and how to protect them. Be sure to inspect them after freeze events.
- Consider purchasing insulating materials to protect pipes before freeze warnings begin.
- Stay alert.
- Heating sources pose fire and health risks. Inspect smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors, and make sure you have replacement batteries available.
- Identify reliable sources of information for weather alerts and local winter weather guidance for your area.
- Put together a winter weather safety kit for your vehicle.
- Take special considerations for individuals with special and medical needs, as well as pets. Plan to carefully remove winter precipitation without risking overexertion injury and health issues.
“It is not ‘if’ but rather ‘when’ you will be impacted by a disaster. Once a disaster occurs, your moment-to-moment decisions and available resources will impact short- and long-term effects. Your level of preparedness can directly increase response success and decrease recovery time.”
— APTIM Preparedness Director Amy Courville
APTIM envisions a culture of preparedness and equity for communities, where immediate needs are met and the impacts of future emergencies, disasters, and catastrophic events are mitigated for all. In pursuit of this vision, APTIM crafts resilient communities by providing full lifecycle emergency management and disaster services. Our experts partner with communities to preserve the environment, plan for emergencies, restore essential services and business functions, avoid damage and loss of life, and support whole-community and economic recovery.
Contact our team today to help develop, evaluate, and/or strengthen your preparedness.
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