Prep Series Week 9: Neighborhood Emergency Planning
This is part eight of our ten-part toolkit series providing a step-by-step guide about how to prepare for disaster. You can read Parts 1-8 in the Resources & Toolkits page of Cramming for the Apocalypse.
I’ll be following up this series with one on community preparedness in the Fall. So you can treat this as an introduction to that series which will showcase examples of community preparedness. This will serve as a starting point around emergency preparedness.
When I moved to Portland, Oregon, it was a year after The New Yorker published Kathryn Schulz’s story, “The Really Big One” about the devastating Cascadia Subduction Zone Earthquake that could hit the Pacific Northwest anytime between now and the next fifty years. Schulz described in excruciating detail the massive scale of destruction that could befall the region. While scientists have been trying to warn all of us for a long time about what has become just “the earthquake” locally (e.g., this 2011 Outside story about it), the detail Schulz painted such a vivid picture of what truly could happen, that people finally started paying attention.
We moved here the year after the story was published, just in time for discussions of “the earthquake” to be normalized in day-to-day chatter. And while we might talk about it nonchalantly, it freaked me the F*** out. I got pregnant soon after we arrived and then after that I a was new mom, so not only did I have to figure out how to keep a baby alive day-to-day, but also worry about an earthquake to befall us at any moment. When the initial fear dulled a bit and I could think clearly, I really wanted to know what people were doing about it. From my initial observation, the people around me took it as less of a call to action and more of an acceptance of our fate. That said, many people have taken steps to seismic retrofit their homes and to stock up on food and water lest we be trapped here for weeks. And so I put my ear to the ground to learn what other people have been doing to prepare.
What I found during this time was a Northeast Portland neighborhood (or really people who lived in two blocks within a neighborhood) who had been preparing as a community since that article came out. I call them the Alameda example throughout this post. I was so intrigued that I wrote a whole story about them in CityLab. And what I found out through the reporting was that these folks who wanted to do some neighborly preparedness accountability unintentionally landed on one of the biggest keys to preparedness: knowing your neighbors.
“The number-one thing I always say to community groups, ‘Do you want to survive in a disaster? Well, then you better know your neighbor,’” Lori Peek, director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder told me in our interview for the story. “In the immediate life-saving moment of the disaster unfolding, that’s when our communal ties are exceptionally important. If you’re isolated, no one will know to come rescue you.”
This is shown in the research as well. Daniel Aldrich, professor of political science and director of the Security and Resilience Studies Program at Northeastern University, focuses much of his research on social capital in the face of resilience. And found that building those social bonds are one of the greatest predictors of a person’s resilience during and after a disaster strikes. ““I can’t emphasize enough the idea of networks and a bottom-up resilience that’s based in the community, as opposed to [a movement] based in household behavior,” he told me for this story in The Progressive.
By convening around one specific topic (e.g., emergency preparedness), you’re making way for deeper connections being made between neighborhoods. That’s why today, we’re including practical steps to take to become prepared as a neighborhood.
A Disclaimer
This is one of those long-term relationship-building kind of activities. This isn’t a “I have my go-bag together” or “I have the right amount of water for my family” kind of box to check off. It takes time and energy and effort and involves socializing. It’s building social capital, y’all.
For an extrovert like me that’s an easy ask because people give me energy. But for an introvert like my spouse, it’s a reach and takes a lot of extra emotional effort. I've received a number of questions from folks asking how they engage with community preparedness. Many of them note they’re introverts, but convening around emergency preparedness is a great place to start to get to know the people in your community. It provides an excuse to do so rather than just randomly walking up to someone’s door to “chat.”
Additionally, this one obviously involves people. And people are complicated and complex and have baggage and the more you get to know someone, the more those come out in a relationship. But isn’t that the beauty of life? Isn’t that a way to cultivate a more connected and deeper experience on this beautiful planet? It’s hard, but IMHO, totally worth it.
And I also want to note that I’m not an expert on this. I’m using details from the community and neighborhood I researched for the CityLab story and what has happened in my own life. That is to say, the examples I know are in White, fairly privileged communities where people live in separate single-family homes. The experience a person is going to have in an environment that doesn't look like mine is going to be different. But they can be transferable to most environments such as housing communities, apartment complexes, etc.
I’ll include some more info about those resources at the end. And also, stay tuned in our next series (dropping in the Fall!) which will focus solely on community preparedness.
Find a Preparedness Buddy
The first step is to talk to the people you already know in your neighborhood or community. Ask them if they’d be interested in chatting with you about how to go about facilitating creating a neighborhood emergency plan. This is a great way to ensure you won’t be doing this alone and to get the pulse of the neighborhood.
A number of my neighbors have been around for a long time, some decades (we’re in an older block), so they have an established connection among each other, specifically because my neighbors, Carol and Sylvia, host twice yearly Solstice parties at their house. They had already done a good amount of legwork gathering contact information and details about the households on our block. So there might even be Carols and Sylvias on your block you want to talk with. Utilize their built-in social capital and plant the seed for preparedness.
If you’re starting very much from scratch, having a couple of buddies to help out is a great way to start. And hold a preliminary strategy meeting with that group to decide on what would be the geographic reach to start something (one or two blocks or just your apartment hallway is a good start) and how you want to get started. You can discuss the following steps together.
Plan an Inaugural Neighborhood Gathering
If you don’t have regular gatherings with your neighbors already, it might be best to start with a more casual, non-preparedness focused gathering. A block party? A backyard brunch? A porch hang? Something that just offers a space for people to start getting to know each other.
You can start to plant the seed of neighborhood preparedness in casual conversations with people at this gathering. I did this throughout my first couple years of living in our neighborhood (which took a bit of time because we moved here at the very beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic). I brought it up to folks, such as Carol and Sylvia and my next-door neighbor Christina, on a fairly regular basis. Note: Next week’s toolkit is about talking to others about preparedness, so there will be some resources there about how to go about these discussions.
Some things to consider for these gatherings:
How to invite people: If you don’t have a phone or email for folks (and even if you do), just plan a day and time that works for you and could likely for others and print out some invitations to bring to people’s houses. Even though we have a list of emails, Carol and Sylvia still deliver paper invites to each neighbor for their parties.
Gathering contact info: Use this gathering to collect people’s contact info. Have a sheet where they can put their email, phone number, address, etc. and who is in their household.
Follow up: Follow up with an email to everyone who gave their contact info with a digital spreadsheet so that everyone has it.
Normalize Communication with the Neighbors
Now that you’ve held your first event and collected contact information, start an email or text thread with neighbors and normalize reaching out for neighborly things.
For example, during our latest ice storm in February, I sent out an email to the neighbors to see if anyone needed anything. I also sometimes end up with a surplus bread supply from a volunteer gig with my kid’s school and I let my neighbors know to come by to grab some bread and pastries. The same thread has been used by other neighbors to sell holiday wreaths for a preschool fundraiser and invitation to a Flowers for a Palestine fundraiser at a neighbor’s flower shop.
By establishing this line of communication it opens up possibilities to connect even when you don’t see each other face-to-face that often.
Organize Your First Preparedness Gathering
The next step once you’ve established some initial connections is to organize a gathering to discuss community preparedness. The first (and only, at this point) gathering my neighbors and I had about preparedness was just to discuss how we wanted to move forward with it. What we landed on (and also what the Alameda people from the CityLit story did) was to hold regular (quarterly or semi-annual) parties that might include some kind of preparedness theme. The Red Cross has this great toolkit for hosting a preparedness event–this is geared towards larger-scale events, but there are some really helpful resources and activities that could be pared down to smaller groups.
My neighbors had this initial meeting a few weeks back and are planning on meeting sometime in the next few weeks to launch our quarterly-ish gatherings. At these meetings we plan to do the following:
Make it an open discussion – The first meeting is a good opportunity to just chat generally about preparedness. It helps to facilitate the conversation a bit, but leave it open for people to share their thoughts and anxieties about emergency preparedness. At our first meeting we just talked more generally and got excited about themed meetings for future discussions)
Focus on a topic (for future meetings) – This first one will be focused on food and food storage. We will possibly bring a guest speaker to discuss the topic. The meeting I visited for the Alameda neighbors brought Marilyn Bishop from Cascadia Quake Kits. She talked about earthquake survival tips. And outside of the visitor, the group also followed up on a previous discussion about putting in a bulk order for stackable emergency water containers. Having an “agenda” might actually make the more introverted neighbors feel more comfortable coming since it allows for non-small-talk time.
Make it fun! – There will be beverages and food and fun. At this first one we’re having folks bring the “luxury” item that they’ll definitely be stocking up on (e.g., coffee, tea, dried mango, tiny bottles of gin, etc.). The Alameda group told me that at one of their block parties, they invited the fire department, complete with a fire truck that the kids and adults alike to tour.
Collect and Update Information – At each of these meetings you want to continue to collect information, update that information, and remind people of that information. The information that we’re collecting now (and that I got from the Alameda group) includes a spreadsheet with basic info from each household, skills and experience you bring, and resources/tools you might have. This template was created by the folks from the Alameda neighborhood and I updated and modified it slightly–you can download the template and use it with your community. [Download and Copy This Spreadsheet Template]
Continue Meeting
As time goes on, you’ll find that you’ll get closer to your neighbors, know more about them and them about you, and feel connected to your community. Here are some suggested topics to cover over the subsequent months from your first meeting:
Any of the preparedness topics from this toolkit series: food, water, first aid, fuel and illumination, finances, sanitation, and evacuation plans. You could even work through the workbook together.
What to do as a community in case of different emergencies – putting together a “buddy” system (kind of like a phone tree) for checking up on neighbors in case of an emergency.
How to put together a family emergency plan.
CPR/First Aid training – connect with an instructor to run a certification training.
Speakers from the emergency management bureau or neighborhood emergency team.
Eventually there’s a likelihood you run out of “emergency preparedness” topics or and you have your system pretty much set up and ready to roll out if anything happens. Or folks might just get a little weary of constantly talking about it and you need a break. In that case, you want to continue to meet at regular intervals, you just don’t need to have them emergency preparedness focused.
When I met with the group in Alameda, they had already been meeting for 5 years on a regular basis. “We’re inventing this as we go along, and still have skills [development] on the back burner, but not so intensely,” the originator of the group, Michael Hall told me for the story. “I think we’re drifting towards a more social, getting-to-know-you kind of thing.” A spinoff knitting group was started that came out of these regular gatherings.
Michael had told one of the other coordinators, Mary, who helped with social stuff, that he thought they could maybe move to once a year. But Mary being so focused on the social capital urged him to keep it going twice-yearly. “You lose the connection, you lose the momentum,” she told me. “We’re really trying to keep the momentum of meeting twice a year, because it’s a good reminder. We still have work to do.”
Bonus FEMA Resources
You don’t need to dive into these immediately or in order to hold your meetings. I’ll say that I’ve reviewed these, but I get easily overwhelmed, so it makes sense to take each meeting as they come. But we do think these could be helpful as you become a more robust organizing entity.
Faith-Based Volunteer Partnership Resources: Because faith-based organizations are often the center of many communities, they are also excellent sources of information. The resources from FEMA are well-suited for small-scale organizing bodies like a neighborhood group like the one you’re developing.
National Disaster Recovery Framework: It could be useful to familiarize yourself with the NDRF which is a coordinating structure that facilitates a smooth response and recovery post-disaster. You’ll want to know what that looks like in your community and what your neighborhood group should know about it.
FEMA Planning Guides: The planning guides on this page could be useful in a similar way to the faith-based resources page that helps guide you through the resources available for post-disaster situations.
Action Steps
Find a preparedness buddy. See page 35 in the workbook.
Plan a non-preparedness neighborhood gathering. See page 35 in the workbook.
Establish email (or text even) communication with your community and normalize that connection. See page 35 in the workbook
Decide on frequency of emergency prep meetings. Seep page 35 in the workbook.
Organize your first preparedness meeting. See page 36 in the workbook.
Establish a plan for the next few meetings. See page 36 in the workbook.
Create a spreadsheet with preparedness info for neighbors. See above as well as page 37 in the workbook for example template.