In the Last Several Days We Have Been Hearing of the Disastrous Hurricane in Texas. We

In the last several days we have been hearing of the disastrous hurricane in Texas. We will probably not have a hurricane in Oceanside, but we are prone to other types of disasters, such as earthquakes, wildland fires, flooding, and power outages.

One of the most important things we can have in a disaster is information. How can we get this information? How will we know if we need to evacuate?

Online you will find sdcountyemergency.com which has current updates on emergency situations, maps that show locations of major incidents and evacuation shelters.

To improve public safety and increase coordination throughout the region, the City of San Diego has recently adopted the county-wide Alert San Diego, also called reverse 9-1-1, notification system. Alert San Diego allows the City to send telephone notifications to residents and businesses within an area impacted or threatened by an emergency. The system utilizes 9-1-1 telephone databases, and is therefore able to contact listed and unlisted land-line telephones. If a call is picked up by an answering machine, the system will leave a voice message. If the telephone called is busy or does not answer, the system will redial that number up to three times in an attempt to deliver the message. Alert San Diego is TTY/TDD capable.

While every attempt will be made to contact residents in response to an emergency, there are factors that impact completion of calls. Those include loss of electrical power, call volume in the area reducing available lines, busy connections, hang ups, caller ID blocking, etc. Residents should not wait for an emergency call.

Because the system uses 9-1-1 telephone databases, only land-line numbers are in the system. If you have a Voice over IP (VoIP) or cellular telephone and would like to be notified through that device, or if you would like an email notification, you must self-register those telephone numbers and/or email address with the system.

To register your cell phone number, VoIP phone number, and email address, go to readysandiego.org/alertsandiego/ . It only takes a minute to register. Listed and unlisted landline phone numbers are already included in the database and do not need to be registered.

Another source of information can be found at local radio stations (KOGO AM/600 and KLSD AM/1360).

If you need to talk to someoneabout evacuations, shelters, road closures and other disaster-related services, call 211.

The SD Emergency App for your cell phone contains disaster preparedness information, interactive checklists to help you to create your emergency plan, build an emergency supplies kit, and when disaster strikes; the SD Emergency App will keep you and your family informed with emergency updates, interactive emergency maps, and shelter locations. It can be found at http://www.readysandiego.org/SDEmergencyApp/.

Are you prepared for a law enforcement officer to come knocking on your door telling to evacuate immediately? Have you thought of what you will need to survive for a few days away from home? What personal possessions would you hate to lose if you lost your home? These are all things we need to consider. As we have seen in the last few days this could happen to us.

For more information on disaster preparedness go to (readysandiego.org).

For more information about OHCC CERT, please go to (http://ohcccert.net).

If you are willing to help your neighbor in a time of need, please consider joining our team…contact Tim () or Bill ().