Page 13 - MidWeek - February 22, 2023

Disaster Ready Paulette Ito
documenting our emergency meeting locations. We discussed important contingency meeting places in case we were not all at home, or if we were coming home and the roads were not accessible. Our first plan of action is to call to check in with each other and then head straight to our meeting place. We also have a backup plan if there is no cell phone coverage. We even have emergency plans in place when we go on vacation. Of course, our hotel is always our headquarters, but we designate other meeting points at each place we visit in case we get separated. This is especially important in areas where cell phones may not work, and is also very helpful when traveling with large groups
A family emergency preparedness plan is similar to a business disaster recovery plan. Every family should have one and everyone in your household
should be aware of it. It’s certainly not a normal process to imagine different types of unthinkable natural disasters or public disturbances. However, to have a thorough and comprehensive emergency preparedness plan, going through the exercise requires you to imagine and then plan and prepare for the worst. My dad’s workplace consistently pushed the phrase “safety pays in many ways” to encourage its employees to carefully consider how they could improve and prepare for possible incidents. This emergency preparedness exercise helps you do just that!
Many people might think that emergency preparedness merely means using common sense. But take a look at your family and friends. Do they all think and act alike? Would you all react the same way to an emergency situation? No. That’s why you
need a plan.
Truth be told, I had to do
the emergency preparedness planning as part of a project. Of course, I would like to think I would have done this with my family without it being a requirement, but I probably would have procrastinated. Now that we completed it, I’m very happy and proud — and highly recommend you do the same. Visit Hawaiian Financial Federal Credit Union for a link to FEMA’s basic preparedness guide to get started. It will be great family bonding experience that also provides the peace of mind knowing you are prepared for whatever comes.
Once your family completes the emergency preparedness plan, including documenting your meeting spots, put it with your Ho‘okele guidebook. The guidebook was designed to document all your important
life-planning details. Hawaiian Financial Federal Credit Union provides this valuable resource because we want everyone in our community to live their best life. Completing your Ho‘okele guidebook truly prepares you for whatever life brings.
Parts 1.1 and 1.2 of the Ho‘okele guidebook are now available at hificu.com/GYHO. Ho‘okele is free to download and only available online. Look out for Ho‘okele 1.3 and 1.4 in the coming quarters to complete the series.
For more information about the “Get Your House In Order” campaign, email us at GYHO@ hificu.com. Also, tune in to KITV at 7 p.m. every Saturday to watch the Get Your House In Order TV show. Join Hawai‘i journalist Yunji de Nies as she dives deeper into why we should, and how we can all, “get our houses in order.”
A few years ago, our family went through an emergency preparedness exercise. We thoroughly reviewed all five phases of emergency preparedness as established by the Federal Emergency Management Agency: prevention, protection, mitigation, response and recovery.
Prevention focuses on identifying possible hazards to avoid or stopping threats from nature and human activities. Protection includes efforts to mitigate possible future emergencies, such as planning, training, exercising and assessing. Mitigation is the effort to reduce loss of life and property by decreasing the impact of disasters and emergencies. The response phase is a reaction to the occurrence of a disaster or emergency and consists of actions aimed at saving lives, which reduces economic losses and alleviates suffering. Recovery comprises activities that continue beyond the emergency to restore critical functions and begin stabilization.
During our family’s emergency planning process, we discussed possible scenarios and applied the five FEMA phases to each one. We discussed and analyzed more than a dozen possible emergency
events, and documented the best approach for each. Our scenarios covered kitchen fires, floods, hurricanes, flat tires, car accidents, earthquakes and various other events.
For our house fire emergency scenario, we all agreed on the following:
• Prevention: Be mindful
around the stove, keep loose garments and flammable materials away from the heat source, and never use the stovetop for storage.
• Protection: Keep a fire extinguisher in the kitchen and always have pot covers available when cooking.
• Mitigation: Have evacuation plan and make sure doors and exits are clear.
• Response: Stay calm, and quickly respond to and extinguish the fire. If this is not possible, evacuate to the designated meeting spot and call 911.
• Recovery: Take care of injuries and destroyed property, as well as file insurance claims and support each other.
We followed this same planning process for more than a dozen scenarios. One of the most important outcomes of the exercise was agreeing on and
an
February 22, 2023 MIDWEEK 13
PAULETTE ITO
SVP Marketing
Hawaiian Financial Federal Credit Union
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