How to pack grab-and-go bags
Extract from Merritt Herald | Written by Laísa Condé | Aug 8, 2024
It is wildfire season again in Canada and a few communities across B.C. have already experienced evacuation alerts and orders.
A major emergency can happen at any time and knowing what to have at home or take with you during an evacuation, can be useful and even life-saving.
Adam Hart, emergency management coordinator at the City of Merritt, sat down with the Herald to talk about emergency preparedness during the wildfire season.
“I feel like our first objective is to avoid being in a situation where we would need to evacuate in the first place,” he said. “With regards specifically to wildfires, our primary program in the City is to enable or prevent us having to evacuate as a result of a wildfire is FireSmart.”
Hart highlighted the importance of always staying alert of your surroundings.
“Even before an evacuation alert or order is issued, just be on the lookout sort of for what’s going in the community, what’s going on around the community,” Hart said. “With wildfires in particular, I think that the BC Wildfire Service map, which you can access online, is a terrific resource.”
The BC Wildfire Service map is a tool that allows users to access all the locations province wide and get details of all active wildfires in B.C., as well as wildfire statistics and additional resources – such as evacuation alerts and orders.
Hart also recommends community members to sign up to the Evacuee Registration & Assistance (ERA).
PREPARE YOUR GRAB & GO BAG
Prepare for emergency evacuations. Create a grab & go bag to keep at home, work, or in your vehicle.
• Food (ready to eat) and water
• Phone charger & extra batteries
• Flashlight & radio & whistle
• Warm blanket & seasonal clothing
• Basic toiletries and personal items (hand sanitizer, toothbrush, ear plugs, glasses, contact lenses, medication, first aid kit)
• Extra cash & pen with notepad
• Important documentation: insurance (policy numbers & contacts); identification (driver’s license; passport); other account information
• Emergency plan (contacts for emergency services, utilities, and local information; detailed list of home occupants & pets (prescriptions, health numbers, contact info for various regular destinations); contacts for neighbours and landlords; map of home with the location of your utilities; local area map.
“So if you are ever evacuated from a community, you will in all likelihood receive assistance from Emergency Support Services (ESS), that’s in pretty much any community in B.C., and you have to go to a reception centre with ESS in order to receive assistance,” he added.
“If you create a profile in the Evacuee Registration & Assistance tool, it will save you some time at the reception centre and simplify that process. You can do that whenever, it doesn’t have to be an evacuation alert to create that profile.”
As for emergency kits and grab-and-go bags, Hart suggests that people take a look at the basic guidelines.
“Everyone should be sort of personalizing their emergency kits and needs for themselves. Obviously, there’s some basic guidelines that are applicable to just about everyone,” Hart said.
The B.C. government has a page on their website that lists basic supplies that people can follow to build their own emergency and grab-and-go kits.
For emergency kits, it is recommended that people should stock non-perishable food for a minimum three-day to a one-week supply; four litres of water per person for drinking and sanitation; phone charger; flashlight; extra batteries; personal toiletries.
A copy of the emergency plan as well as copies of important documents, such as insurance papers and identification is also highly recommended.
As for grab-and-go bags, people should have in mind that it should be an emergency kit that is easy to take with them, in case they need to leave right away. It is recommended to make grab-and-go bags for your home, workplace and vehicle.
“I recognize that everybody has sort of unique circumstances and budgets and stuff that maybe some people can afford really fancy emergency kits and maybe other people can’t do that,” Hart said.
He also reminds people to be flexible with their emergency kits, especially considering that different natural disasters might hit Merritt.
“We do something called hazard risk and vulnerability analysis, which basically looks at what are the biggest or most significant threats to Merritt. Wildfire and flood are absolutely at the top of that list,” Hart added.
“But there’s a wide variety of other emergencies that may potentially happen in Merritt. For that reason, I would recommend keeping your emergency kits very flexible so that you can respond or be prepared for any different type of emergency.”
Hart highlighted the importance of having family discussions on emergency plans, such as where the predesignated meeting spot is, where you would meet the rest of your family if someone is out of reach.
“This could take five minutes out of your life to have that discussion, but it could make a really big difference if a major emergency does happen,” he added.
“Even just taking a moment out of your day, just thinking about what you might do during an emergency, I think it’s really important.”
He also recommends that people go over their bags and emergency kits during an emergency alert.
“Take that moment to go through your grab-and-go bag or your emergency kit and see what you have,” Hart said. “If your family circumstances change, if you suddenly have a kid in your family or a pet that you didn’t have before, consider how that might change your emergency kit.”
In terms of emergency preparedness by the City of Merritt, Hart reassures that the city is taking actions with regards to wildfire preparedness and flood preparedness.
“The fire department right now is producing a new community wildfire resiliency plan, that’s their project for basically wildfire preparedness or mitigation,” he said. “Next month, we’re going to be putting together a more advanced plan for how our public works department could respond to flooding, including exactly where to be laying sandbags.”
“The city is taking this very seriously at this moment, not just when an emergency is taking place.”
