Ever ready

Are you ready for an emergency?

Perhaps you’ve had CPR training, but is your home first-aid kit fully stocked? Do your children know the emergency routes to get outside the home quickly? Do you have a designated family meeting place if a disaster strikes your neighborhood? How long could you feed your family if a natural disaster interrupted our food supplies? Do you have an emergency kit of food, water and supplies?

These are all questions too many of us can honestly answer “no” or “I don’t know.” This wasn’t the case with Amanda Ham, a Colony High School sophomore who one day came home and found her mother collapsed on the floor. Her Junior ROTC training served her well and allowed the teen to render aid to her mother.

Unfortunately, not many of us would be as prepared when faced with the unknown. Ham was among dozens of area volunteers and emergency responders at Saturday’s Mat-Su Safe and Sound Preparedness Fair at Mat-Su College.

It’s a necessary event that also serves as a reminder that emergencies can happen at any time to anybody and require multiple responses. Some may be medical in nature, others situational, like becoming lost on a hunt. Others are responding to somebody else’s emergency, like coming upon someone suffering a heart attack or an auto accident.

Whatever the situation, most of us aren’t ready. What emergency supplies should we keep in our homes? In our cars? Our aircraft and watercraft? As a local news organization, we’ve had to cover the occasional lost hunter or downed airplane only to report that the hunters or pilots weren’t prepared, sometimes with disastrous results.

On Monday, many in the Valley felt the gentle rolling from a 4.92-magnitude earthquake. The shake wasn’t enough to cause damage or accidents. But it could have been.

Even if you think you’re prepared, check again. Don’t wait another year for the next Safe and Sound Preparedness Fair. And if you missed that, don’t fret. The American Red Cross, which is often out front responding to emergencies, is also proactive with disaster preparedness. The Valley Red Cross chapter is hosting a series of free disaster classes, the next from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

It’s three well-spent hours that could save lives. If you’re unsure how to answer “yes” to any or all of the questions at the beginning of this editorial, the Red Cross can help you there, too. Call 357-6060.

Don’t procrastinate. Be ready.