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There is already a glut of individual and family preparedness material. In fact, our own preparedness manual "Disaster Prep 101" sits on the shelf of the Citizen Corps directors who are in charge of creating the CERT manuals. More info on what is already done can be found at www.disasterprep101.com.

It's the foundation for a few homeland secrutiy publications as well.

One of my biggest concerns is communication. I haven't heard people talk about how cell phones will not be reliable in a time of crisis due to either towers being down or all circuits being busy.

For information on emergency preparedness if you have pets please visit

www.petsafecoalition.org

Pet Safe Coalition is the Nassau County Animal Evacuation Response Team.
They need volunteers to educate pet owners and the public on what to do in emergency.
You must have a plan and "go bag" for animals! You cannot go to a shelter with a pet, and you cannot leave them behind.

Yep, I'm with Robert. It is all fear tactics DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE! This is crazy! Like Chestinee brought up HOW DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE GOING TO BE? Where were you during 911, during the crane collapse, during the street the blew up, during the OTHER plane that hit the apartment building. My friend was on a train during the black out he had to walk through a subway in his sandals, I was at work during 911 and during the blackout (why do I live here?-ha!) I had to walk home from MIDtown over the B-bridge and through BKLYN, if I would have had a bag at home, a lot of good that would have done. Look at the "homeland" security website, its been at HIGH since then. Which brings me to another point. What about the guys in the subways, the ARMY, with their automatic rifles, what happens when some kid that is stirring up trouble? Is that ARMY guy have enough sense to hold off or does he start shooting first, ask questions later? Robert is right: It is Fear Mongering, to keep YOU where they want YOU.

There's no need to go bonkers by getting prepared. Mainly, get ready for events that are more likely to happen. In this city that means hurricanes, blizzards, etc. If you take steps to be ready for one event, you're more than likely ready for the others.

If you'd like more information on how to create a personal preparedness plan, including how to determine what you should prepare for, take the following course:

http://www.ualbanycphp.org/learning/registration/tab.cfm?course=pep&s=Overview

Its from the University at Albany, its free of charge and walks you step by step through the process.

The 'boat' sums it up succinctly. The caller is right - in certain disaster scenarios, having a boat would be useful. But useless in others. How are we supposed to prepare for all possible scenarios without going completely bonkers????

Go bags should be in Backpacks since A lot of walkng might be necesary

It's funny, the one place where I have been handed a brochure about preparedness was at my veterinarian's office. It was a publication by the City of NY that tells you what to do with pets whether you take them with you or need to leave them at home. I believe it was published right after Katrina.

Dont' inflate it until you get it out of the house.

mr. solomon did not respond to my comment. brian, please, i've done all he suggests and OEM in NOT responsive. -naomi

I can think of at least 30 - 50 different types of "emergencies" ranging from a fire in my building to Category 5 hurricane, nuclear attact, Tsunami, biological-chemical warfare attack etc. So, are we to spend time studying all of the MANY terrible possibilities & preparing for them? Is that realistic or useful?

I'm sorry to say that it's this kind of behavior that causes a lot of the world to think Americans are nuts!

(I'm not saying American ARE nuts but this guy doesn't help..)

I can't avoid the feeling that this guy's heightened personal sense of 'alertness' has been used as a bit of a business opportunity.

Well intended and, even useful, or not, the thought of him sitting there in his gear promoting his book is a darkly comical sign of the times.

Scott -

If you're looking for info on how to take care of your pets during an emergency, look at the links below:

http://www.prepare.org/animal/animal.htm
http://www.fema.gov/individual/animals.shtm

The first is from Red Cross, the second from FEMA

NYC government failed completely during the Great Northeast Power Blackout of Aug 14, 2003.

Why should we think anything has changed since then?

Oh come on! It is hopeless to even dream of evacuating NYC - All I do is keep bottles (glass) of water.

After katrina I heard that NYC will allow pets on public transportation - if they don't, i stay home!

And as for go bags - how ridiculous is that - who on earth is going to be home when it's time to go?

Sounds like a senile boy scout to me. Do we need more people carrying flashlights around?
Why not spend one's free time "doing" rather than "preparing", there's lots of help needed every day.

I'm Business Continuity Manager in a large corp. and this feature is so timely as I'm on a misson to best prepare every assocaite as we have done with our business. Starting wiht the Go Bag it's very simple. Thank you

Anyone who is this prepared is paranoid.

If this area has to be evacuated like Katrina it just couldn't happen.

It's impossible to evacuate 10 million plus people. NO WAY.

What ever comes comes and who survives great.

Darwin. :)

I kept a dry bag full of some essentials which could be inflated and used as a floatation device, and a wet suit near my front door after 9/11. This in case I had to jump in the Hudson River and swim (float) to NJ (with the tide).

Tell me about it, Robert: I still have canned/dried goods and gallons of water stockpiled from Y2K!

I hope you talk about the necessity of arming yourself to defend against looters and misprobates who always manage to show themselves after natural disasters.

This is like the republican fear tactics around election time. I checked out that page and freaked out. I mean really, what exactly are Mr. Solomon and all those fear mongering folk think is going to happen! Yeah, we should prepare ourselves but we shouldn't become paranoid over it and spend every minute thinking about it because we don't know what EXACTLY is coming or when and what will be left after!!!

i'm curious about what john solomon has to say re residential EP in high rise buildings. just spent 2 frustratinf years trying to raise awareness in a 1,000-apartment co-op in manhattan. found OEM completely unavailable; something has to change!

How do I plan to keep my cat and dog safe? Like if I have to evacuate? In New Orleans, people couldn't bring their pets on the buses and so some people just stayed home.