Disaster Tip of the Week: Some Safety Tips for The Holidays

Here are some great tips to help you keep safe during the holidays. I also want to take the time to wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and Happy New Year. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read the blog. I will be taking a break and will be providing more great new content after the Start of the New Year.

Here are your tips:

1. Water, Water, Water your live tree. This time of year Christmas tree fires occur regularly, but they are usually avoidable. Start by trimming the base of the tree a bit and provide plenty of water. Most trees do not get enough, check it several times a day and keep the base filled with water.
2. Check your lights, especially before placing them onto your live tree. Broken, missing lights and cracked or frayed wires pose an additional fire risk, and a shock hazard. When it doubt, throw them out.
3. Don't overload your electrical outlets. This time of year we sometimes get caught up in the beauty of all the lights, but too many into one outlet or on the same circuit can be a serious problem.
4.  Reevaluate your escape plan incase of fire. With the added elements of live trees, candles and many other flammable items it is very important everyone knows how to get out and get out safely.
5. Now is the perfect time to check your fire and Carbon Monoxide alarms.
6. When using candles keep them away from flammable objects. A good rule of thumb is if it making the object hot, move the object or put the candle somewhere else.
7. Many candles come in containers that also get very hot and can burn someone if grabbed or even burn through a wood surface. Make sure children can't grab them and place the candle on a surface that will not burn (we use coasters in my home).
8. Wrapping paper can burn very quickly and cause a quick flash fire. Do not burn the wrapping paper it is not intended for that purpose. Reuse, recycle or just throw it out.
9. When setting up your tree, keep it at least three feet away from fireplaces, radiators, and other heat sources. I would even try for five feet if possible.
10. Keep cords out of the way where someone will not trip over them. Don't use tacks or staples to hang electric cords, and don't place them under carpets.

Have a safe and happy holiday season.

Free Report: How to Create a Corporate Culture Dedicated to Business Continuity

This is a recent article I created and give to my clients through my business website at Continuity Corporation. Recently people have doing some relevent searches here on my blog so I thought I would make a few small changes and share one of them here.

How to Create a Corporate Culture Dedicated to Business Continuity -

If you would like more of these please let me know.

H1N1 Vaccine Locations by State

Below is a list of Vaccine locations by State, and includes links for more information. This information may not be 100% accurate, so please double check with your local health department agency, or your doctor prior to going to one of these locations. 

H1N1 vaccine locations -

Disaster Tip of the Week: Learn Several Methods for Starting a Fire

During a survival situation knowing how to start a fire can be the key difference in staying alive.

Fire is not just good for staying warm, boiling water and cooking food, but provides a great psychological boost.

If you have studied survival techniques and situations like I have you know that much of your survival also relies on your state of mind (I'll get more into this in an up coming post), and anything that can give you that edge including having a fire can improve your odds.

The method you use to start a fire, doesn't really matter as much s the success of actually starting one and there are many methods for doing so.

The one main point to take away from this post is to learn multiple methods, if you can practice them and stick to the ones that seem to work best for you.

The most obvious choice would be to have a reliable lighter or water proof matches but it is important to know what to do when these fail or if you are stuck without them.

Another interesting method is creating fire from forming clear ice into a lens, the best resource for this method the site Wilderness Survival Fire from Ice.

H1N1 Vaccine Recalled in Canda After Severe Side-Effects

Doctors have been advised to stop giving the H1N1 Vaccine in Canda after an unusually high number of reactions in patients occurred.

The reactions range from skin rashes, elevated heart rates, and dyspnea (difficulty breathing). About 1 in 20,000 people have had various anaphylactic reaction to the vaccine which is made by GlaxoSmithKline.

172,000 doses of SmiGlaxothKline's Aperanix vaccine are being recalled and the company has asked doctors to stop giving the vaccine to patients.

The company has declined to say at this time how many people have been given the vaccine at this time.