Spouse Urges Families to Be Prepared

Feb. 1, 2010

Guest blogger Isabel Hodge is a family support program manager for the Pentagon’s Office of Military Community and Family Policy as well as a 21-year military spouse. Her husband, Marine Corps Chief Warrant Officer 5 Bruce Hodge, has been deployed in Iraq since January 2009.

I asked Isabel to contribute to Family Matters occasionally and share her experiences as a military spouse and mother of three, including a special-needs teenager. In today’s entry, Isabel writes about the importance of being prepared for emergencies, a topic that takes on even more significance in the wake of Haiti’s devastating earthquake.

 By Isabel Hodge

It was the weekend before Christmas when the city we live in got buried under record amounts of snow. I remember I left work a little early to avoid driving in the snow and dashed over to the grocery store to stock up on necessities, and then stopped by the shoe store to grab their last two pairs of snow boots for the boys. (They’re growing like weeds but hopefully the boots will last them a couple of years at least!)

I called my Dad to find out what I needed to do to prepare for the “big one.” I wasn’t able to reach him on his cell phone. I started my list. Since I have a personal emergency preparedness plan, I knew I had candles, flashlights, toilet paper, chocolate and all the other crucial things you need when you might lose power and are snowed in — oh yeah, and a snow shovel!

My colleagues at work laugh at me when I start talking about developing my personal emergency preparedness plan. I have to admit that I am probably the most prepared person you will ever know. Yes, I even have 100 N-95 Pandemic Flu masks in my closet and a portable potty, a bucket with a toilet lid that fits on top. You are probably wondering why I am overly zealous about emergency preparedness. I have several reasons why:

– When we were stationed in Okinawa, Japan, we experienced typhoons, flash floods that tore through the base and a terrible earthquake. I got knocked to the ground and my vehicle stalled in deep water.

– When we were stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif., we had another significant earthquake and the base flooded in 1993. The flood waters damaged the bridge that took us over to main side, and Marines delivered drinking water to families residing in base housing. We also had some brush fires that were quite scary.

– When we were stationed in Beaufort, S.C., I had to evacuate a couple of times with the children to Atlanta because of hurricane threats. My husband had to remain at the base to keep communications up and running smoothly. We also had a waterspout rip through base housing that took some chimneys with it.

– I can’t remember if we had any issues living in North Carolina, but most likely we did.

These are just some of the reasons why I take emergency preparedness seriously. We are a military family and, like many people in America and overseas, we live in places that are sometimes prone to natural disasters.

Please visit the disaster preparedness page on Military HOMEFRONT if you are interested in learning more about emergency preparedness and safety for people with disabilities.

Believe me, it really does pay to be prepared in advance; don’t procrastinate. Please call Military OneSource if you are interested in creating your own emergency preparedness plan because they have experts that can help.