Two years ago Hurricane Sandy made landfall in the United States. While here in NEPA we felt the effects of the Hurricane through power outages–some up to a week long–it was no where near the devastation felt by our coastal neighbors, mainly New Jersey.
A recent poll conducted by Save the Children’s shows that 49% of U.S. parents don’t feel the very prepared to protect their children from disaster, 51% don’t think their child’s school or child care center is very prepared and 74% of parents don’t think the federal government is prepared to protect their kids should disaster strike!
In all, Hurricane Sandy affected 24 states, killed 162 people, and caused more than $50 million in damage and damaged or destroyed 650,000 homes and hundreds of child care centers and schools. It was the day that life turned upside down for thousands of children who suddenly lost everything – including their very sense of stability. Save the Children is still working with many of these children to help them rebound.
So what can you do?
- You can start by watching this 30 second video on how to “pack and prepare”
- Check out this great infographic on the 2014 Disaster Report Card by clicking here.
- Develop a Disaster plan checklist for families and a child’s school/child care by clicking here.
- Sign our pledge to protect children from disaster and encourage your followers to do the same. We’ll share this with your state government if it doesn’t meet our disaster report card preparedness standards for schools and child care.
- Finally, check out my previous post on putting together an Emergency Kit and the disaster preparedness items to include.
Help motivate families to get prepared, so that children are better protected from disaster and keep your family safe.
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