Preparing for emergencies

To all residents, business owners, government offices and school superintendents in the coastal and low-lying areas of the CNMI. What is your plan in the event of a tsunami warning? Have you been able to print your plan for all to see and read?

I have always discussed these issues with the schools that my children have attended over the years and I have yet to see a single comprehensive evacuation plan from any of them. One school did make an attempt and stated that the children would simply march to higher ground, which was located about a mile from the school. May I suggest ways that I hope may start the process of formulating your plan. Each family should have set procedures that must be in place for preparedness. These procedures must come as naturally as putting on your seatbelt when getting into your car. Contact information and routes to take in case of such an emergency must be coordinated so that you do not cause panic amongst yourselves when an event arises.

Questions you may want to ask are: Do our children’s schools have procedures for evacuating our children? Which of our family members work closest to the school in question? Who should be the contact person who will coordinate our point of meeting? Where will our meeting point be? How can our neighbors assist if our location makes it impossible to execute our evacuation procedures in a timely manner? How can we help them in turn? Plan for nighttime events as well. Post your plan on your refrigerator. I strongly urge all schools in the low-lying areas to come up with a plan and have it printed in your handbooks as standard content each year.

I suggest that PSS leaves several buses at each school indefinitely in order to assist in the process of evacuating schools. Unless I’m missing something, I don’t see why buses need to travel back to their main office after dropping our children at school. Vehicles belonging to students and teachers may also be incorporated in the plan for evacuation. Build them in and assign them accordingly. Perhaps some school teachers can be trained in the operations of a bus so as not to tie up a bus driver’s time standing by all day. If there is a will there is a way.

Lastly, I would like to see EMO continue to educate and expose all our residents on the proper procedures for handling emergency situations such as those that we have seen being constantly repeated on our TV sets today. We must all come up with a plan and we must all share it. Thank you.

Steve Sablan
via e-mail