Disaster Tip of The Week: Have An Out of State Contact

During a major disaster, it is possible that you may become separated from other family members. Especially if the disaster occurs during a weekday while you're at work and other members of your family are at school, work, or at home.

This leads us to our Disaster Tip of The Week: Have An Out of State Contact

During disasters, traditional methods of communications such as your cell phone, or even your land-line phone may be unusable. However, if you can get to your emergency meeting place, a designated emergency shelter, or other safe gathering point you should be able to get in touch with your emergency contact. Remember other members of your immediate family may not be able to contact you directly.

When you call your Out of State Contact person, tell that person where you are, if you  are staying put, or are still on the move, and where you may be headed if leaving the designated gathering point. Tell the person what happened and when you plan to call again and if possible how they can reach you as well as any other pertinent information that may be necessary.

Each member of your immediate family should have the same person as their point of contact to call in case of an emergency. The person you choose as the point of contact should write down all the information that you give them and let you know if other members of your family have called and where they might be.

Once the emergency contact has been called he/she should also try to monitor to the news as well so they can relay any information if needed.

If you do not have any friends or relatives living out of State, try another county or even the next town if you must. The idea is to have the person as far away as possible so that they would not affected by the disaster taking place in your region.

For instance my the emergency contact for my family is in NY, and I live in CA, I also have a secondary contact in PA if needed.

Free Emergency contact cards you can use for your family are included here in this post (see link below).

For further reading on keeping your family safe using contact information please refer to one of my past posts, ICE...In Case of Emergency, Who Do You Want Contacted?

Emergency Contact Cards