Be Prepared Together
During a disaster, it can be 2-3 days or more before emergency crews can arrive. You may need to work with and rely on your neighbors to help each other out! Be proactive — make a plan with neighbors and talk about how you can help each other in the event of a disaster.
Your Impact
Action Steps & Tips
Introduction
Helping each other in a disaster is much easier if you know your neighbors and have a plan for what to do! Creating a neighborhood emergency plan is easy and it will not only help in an emergency, but also create a more friendly, resilient and supportive community everyday.
1Step 1: Get together
The first step to creating a neighborhood plan for emergencies is to get together and work as a group to create the plan. The best approach is to plan with neighbors close by — those on your block or street, or in your apartment or condo building. Here are a few steps and tips to bring your neighbors together:
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Invite neighbors to come together to learn about community resilience and emergency preparedness. A good group size to get started is 5-10 households.
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Share your concern about being ready in an emergency, and let them know you have found some great resources to help the neighborhood prepare.
If you don’t know your neighbors yet, find tips on reaching out and getting to know them in the Connect with Community action!
2Step 2: Create your neighborhood emergency plan
During your get together, here is a guide on how to create your plan:
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Introduce resilience: Let your neighbors know that you have been learning about how to prepare your household for a disaster and talk a bit about some of the steps you have taken. Share your experience of how easy it was and how you feel more prepared and safer having your kit and plan! Ask if folks have created their own household emergency plans and kits and share the resources in the Resilience Action Category.
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Talk about what could happen: Talk about the disasters that are most likely to occur in your region and what might happen (from the Step 1: Find Local Risks & Resources and disaster specific actions). Talk about how during a disaster it may be difficult to access resources like food or water and other challenges like power and cell service outages for a period of time. This is a time when neighbors can help each other!
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Make a Neighborhood Plan: Ask everyone if they would like to make a plan to work together if a disaster happens in your neighborhood. Let them know this is easy to do! Here are the steps to take to get started:
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Share local information and resources: Share some of the most important plan elements and resources you learned in creating your household preparedness plan to help your neighbors get up to speed. For example, if you live in a hurricane or wildfire-prone area, talk about evacuation routes. If you live in an area with extreme heat, share information on the location of nearby cooling centers. Also share any local resources available.
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Create a neighborhood emergency contact and resource list. Ask everyone to share contact information along with a list of disaster-specific skills and tools they can share that would be useful in an emergency.
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Examples of skills or resources include: medical or First Aid/CPR training, experience caring for infants or elderly people, a large water tank or solar power that could be used if utilities don’t work, or an extra room or bed to house someone if their home is temporarily uninhabitable.
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After you create the contact list, provide a copy for everyone to print and put in their emergency kit. Also create a group text or WhatsApp group for everyone to reach each other quickly. You can also create a Google or Facebook group for communications.
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Get creative! Map out your block, draw the houses and list the resources, skills, and needs of each household. Take a photo and share with your group.
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Make a plan to help neighbors that might need assistance: Talk about who on your block or in your neighborhood may need help during an emergency. Consider elderly community members, those with medical or functional needs, and children who might be separated from their parents in the event of an emergency.
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Make a plan and designate someone who is responsible for checking on each of these folks — and helping them shelter or evacuate, if necessary. Make sure that each one of these community members is brought into the conversation, listened to and given agency and the opportunity to consent to any plans.
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Helpers should exchange contact information with the person or household they will be helping in the event of an emergency, along with that person’s guardians or family if applicable.
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Helpers should plan to check in with the person or household they will be helping to follow up, discuss the plan, and make any revisions to the plan to prepare for an emergency. For example: What kind of help will they need? What is the best method of contact? Make a back-up plan for someone else to help if you are unable to.
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3Step 3: Invite more neighbors!
At your meeting, make a plan to follow up and invite other neighbors to join in your emergency plans. This could be hosting a follow up meeting with a larger group or reaching out one-on-one. Here is a sample invite:
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“Hi, I’m your neighbor. It’s great to meet you! A few neighbors on our block are creating a plan to help each other in the event of a disaster. We have a basic plan started and would like to invite you to learn more about it. We hope you can join us! We’re meeting on… [List the date/time/location and provide a phone number or email to ask questions or learn more.]
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Encourage people to let you know if they are interested but unable to attend! Consider having someone in your neighbor group designated to share information about the plan one-on-one with neighbors, providing an opportunity to get involved for those that can’t make the meeting.
4Step 4: Consider doing a project together
It's amazing what you can accomplish once you get to know your neighbors and start working together! There are many ways beyond your neighborhood emergency plan to help build community, sustainability, resilience and equity in your neighborhood and community. Here are a few ideas:
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Create a project to plant trees or grow food on your street to share.
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Create an Adopt a Drain program and share the task of keeping storm drains clean to reduce risks of flooding in your neighborhood.
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Identify a neighborhood hazard, like a dangerous intersection or the need for bike lanes, and talk with your city as a group to advocate for a solution.
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Connect with community level emergency preparedness efforts. Attend a First Aid or CERT training together.
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Choose a project that builds equity in your community.