Emergency Management Agency

PREPARING FOR 2012 ARE YOU READY?

How ready are you in the event of an emergency? Planning before an emergency ensures everyone in your family knows what to do and what is expected of them. Consider the preparedness tips below in your 2012 planning.

PREPAREDNESS TIPS TO INCLUDE

For Families:

• Make sure your family has a plan in case of an emergency. Before an emergency happens, sit down together and decide how you will get in contact with each other, where you will go and what you will do in an emergency.
• Determine a neighborhood meeting place, a regional meeting place and an evacuation location.
• Identify an out-of-town emergency contact. It may be easier to make a long-distance phone call than to call across town, so an out-of-town contact is important to help communicate among separated family members. Be sure every member of your family knows the out-of-town phone number and has coins or a prepaid phone card to call the emergency contact. You may have trouble getting through, or the telephone system may be down altogether, but be patient.
• You may also want to inquire about emergency plans at places where your family spends time, such as a place of employment. If no plans exist, consider volunteering to help create one.
• Get an emergency supply kit. Be sure to consider additional items to accommodate family members’ unique needs:
  • Prescription medications and glasses
  • Infant formula and diapers
  • Pet food, extra water for your pet, leash and collar
  • Important family documents such as copies of insurance policies, identification and bank account
  • records in a waterproof, portable container
  • Books, games, puzzles or other activities for children
• Talk to your neighbors about how you can work together in the event of an emergency. You will be better prepared to safely reunite your family and loved ones during an emergency if you think ahead and communicate with others in advance.

For Parents:

If you are a parent, or guardian of an elderly individual or person with access and functional need requirements, including children and adults with disabilities, make sure schools and care providers have emergency response plans:

• Ask how they will communicate with families during a crisis.
• Ask if they store adequate food, water and other basic supplies.
• Find out if they are prepared to "shelter-in-place" if need be, and where they plan to go if they must get away.

For Workplaces:

• Think about what to do if your employees can't go home.
• Make sure you have appropriate supplies on-hand.
• Develop ways to communicate with your employees during work hours and off hours about pending emergencies and the companies operating status

For Communities:

• Find out what kinds of disasters, both natural and man-made, are most likely to occur in your area and how you will be notified. Methods of getting your attention vary from community to community. One common method is to broadcast via emergency radio and TV broadcasts. You might hear a special siren, or get a telephone call, or emergency workers may go door-to-door.
• Contact a nearby Emergency Management Agency for help with emergency planning, or work with your local government and emergency management office to help start a Citizen Corps Council in your area. Visit willcountyema.org to find your local Emergency Management Agency in your community. Visit citizencorps.gov to find local Councils in your community.

Blood is traditionally in short supply during the winter months due to the holidays, travel schedules, inclement weather, and illness. January, in particular, is a difficult month for blood centers to collect blood donations. The American Association of Blood Banks, in conjunction with America’s Blood Centers and the American Red Cross, celebrates National Blood Donor Month (NBDM) to encourage donors to give or pledge to give more blood. More information is available at www.aabb.org.

Will County Emergency Notification System

Will County Emergency Management Agency and Will County 9-1-1 recently implemented an improved notification system to provide emergency alerts to people living and working in Will County. This system allows police, fire, and other emergency officials to send messages for a variety of situations that may affect public safety. In addition to receiving text messages on your cell phone, the new system allows you to choose to receive voice messages delivered to your home or work phone, as well as messages sent to your email account.

There are many situations that may require sending emergency alerts, such as chemical accidents, crime alerts, missing persons, and nuclear power station accidents, to name a few. Every situation is unique, and so is the decision by local emergency officials to use this system. It supplements other systems such as outdoor warning sirens and emergency TV and radio messages.

The transition to the new system has occurred. Use of the existing system will ended on February 15, 2010. To make this transition, it will be necessary for you to take a few minutes to sign up on the new system. Please click on the 'Will County Emergency Notification System' button on your right. You will be prompted to create an account and enter the appropriate information for your cell phone and other notification methods.

A word about severe weather notifications: In the past, our existing system has been used to send general severe weather messages. In nearly all cases, these messages are issued by the National Weather Service and then re-transmitted by a local emergency dispatcher who needs to manually create and send the message. This causes significant delays in sending these messages to you. While our new system may still be used to send severe weather messages in certain situations, we discontinued sending general messages on February 15, 2010 in favor of other systems available at no cost that can send severe weather messages to you automatically. We believe this is ultimately more effective for you. While we cannot endorse any specific systems, you may wish to take advantage of severe weather alerts offered through the following services:

• The Weather Channel – www.weather.com Free weather alerts sent via text message and email for your city or ZIP Code.
• Email Network – www.emergencyemail.org Free alerts sent via text message and email for Will County.
• National Weather Service NOAA Weather Radio - http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lot/?n=nwr Whether or not you receive text alerts, everyone should consider having a NOAA Weather Radio in their home or business. These inexpensive radios receive weather alerts directly from the National Weather Service without relying on text, phone, or email services that may not work in some emergencies.
• There is enough descriptive information about the child, abductor, and/or suspect's vehicle to believe an immediate broadcast alert will help.

Our new notification system and the systems mentioned above are available to you at no cost. However, you may incur charges from your service provider in accordance with your service plan. We appreciate your interest in being informed when emergencies occur and hope you will take a few minutes to sign up on our new system.

Thank you,
Will County Emergency Management Agency
Will County 9-1-1

Will County Special Needs Registry

You've seen the logo, you've read the information, now learn more about Will County Special Needs Registry. Simply click here, and a new page describing the system will appear, scroll to the bottom to the final three bullet points, entitled 'Family Member/Independent Resident' – 'File of Life' – and – 'Seniors'. Simply click on the wording to find out even more information concerning those titles along with short videos. We hope by viewing the videos it will provide you with even more information to encourage our SPECIAL NEEDS POPULATION to register today!

SUNSHINE CALLS CRISIS LINE OF WILL COUNTY

Do you have a family member, friend, neighbor who needs to be checked on daily? Do they also need to be reminded to take their medication? Did you know that Crisis Line of Will County conducts free well-being check calls and reminders to take medication calls to Senior Citizens and Special Needs Population. All done with a live, friendly voice. Help keep our senior citizens and special needs population living independently longer. Call Crisis Line of Will County at 815-722-3344 or online at www.crisisline247.org.