Is Your Child Prepared For a Disaster? #GetReady #SocialGoodMoms

What would you do if disaster strikes and your child is not with you? Does your child know where to go? Who to contact? Do you have a plan? This what Save The Children wants you to think about. They want to help you and your family to Get Ready. Get Safe.

This year is the 10th anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina disaster so it's a good time to talk about ways to make sure we stay connected to our children if we get separated.

Did you know that 5000 children were separated from their parents after Katrina? It took 7 months to connect the last child with her parents! Can you imagine how stressful and scary that must have been

for both the parents and the children?!

So how can you be better prepared?

• When my children were small I made sure they knew phone numbers for me and for their grandparents in case they needed to call in an emergency. 
• We also had a designated meeting spot in case they had to get out of the house because of a fire or intruder. 
• If there was a tornado, they knew to get in the bathtub. 
• I taught them when with friends "if you see a gun, run."
• They also knew how to dial 911.

I thought I was fully prepared. We had a plan. We were all set. I taught them to stick together and to look for safety.

But, we never had a plan for a weather disaster while we were apart. I never thought about how I would find them if something happened when they were at school, or at sports practice, or with a friend. More times than not, they were in places that I wasn't.

How would we find each other if the phone lines were down, like in Katrina? We weren't as prepared as I thought!

That's why I'm writing this, and why Save The Children wants to help you be prepared. Every day, we go to work and send our children in a different direction, but the majority of us don't have a plan for emergencies when we are apart. We want more people to be aware of what happened in Katrina, and come up with a plan of action so you don't have to know the pain of not knowing if your child is safe.

One thing that I never thought of is to have an emergency card for your child to carry with them that would have their information, (allergies, medications, address, etc...,) as well as emergency contact info, including someone from outside your local area. If there was a weather disaster in your area you may not be able to reach local relatives that have been displaced, but may be able to contact a relative or friend in another part of the country for help. Did you think of that? I know I didn't!

Please go to SavetheChildren.org/connect right now to print out an emergency card for your child to keep with them. It is completely free and may make a huge difference in helping you and your child to stay connected.

Hopefully, a devastating disaster like Katrina doesn't happen again, but if it does, I hope everyone is ready and safe. Check out this video and share it so we can spread the word so we can all Get Ready and Get Safe.


Disclosure: I was not compensated for this post. All words and opinions expressed are my own. Information and images have been provided by SaveTheChildren.org in partnership with Social Good Moms.