It's preparedness month... day 10!

It's preparedness month! And we’re celebrating with 30 days full of tips on our favorite topic… preparedness!! If you’ve missed out on any of them, click here to take a trip through the month of September and catch up!!

Photo courtesy of the kidsmatter blog

Preparedness Tip #10
A community working together during an emergency makes sense.  

·         Talk to your neighbors about how you can work together during an emergency.

·         Find out if anyone has specialized equipment like a power generator, or expertise such as medical knowledge, that might help in a crisis.

·         Decide who will check on elderly or disabled neighbors.

·         Make back-up plans for children in case you can't get home in an emergency.

Sharing plans and communicating in advance is a great strategy!

It's preparedness month... day 9!

It's preparedness month! And we’re celebrating with 30 days full of tips on our favorite topic… preparedness!! If you’ve missed out on any of them, click here to take a trip through the month of September and catch up!!

Photo courtesy of Dennis Glines
and the Uintah County Fair

Preparedness Tip #9
Practice. Conduct fire drills and practice evacuating your home twice a year. Drive your planned evacuation route and plot alternate routes on a map in case main roads are blocked or gridlocked. Practice earthquake and tornado drills at home, school and work. Commit a weekend to update telephone numbers, emergency supplies and review your plan with everyone.

Not only will this help you and your family develop a plan... but practicing will also help you when in an emergency!! Panic is often times associated with an emergency, and that can make people do silly things that we wouldn't generally do.  For example, when children here smoke detectors they may hide under their beds, or people may be to scared to go out in the hallway when they smell smoke and huddle in a corner.  Because of this, we staunchly advocate Practice Practice Practice!!

• Test your smoke detectors so your household knows what they sound like
• Test your carbon monoxide detectors so your household know what they sound like
• Have a fire drill once or twice a year 
• Block off certain areas of the house and pretend they are on fire so the household has to practice the 2 ways out of each room rule 
• Make sure that once everyone gets out of the house you all meet at your family meeting place
• Discuss how you each got out and any concerns that developed
• Schedule a visit to a fire station so that your children can see what firemen do, and what they look like in all of their gear
• During fires, children are often scared of what the firemen look like and will run and hide thinking that they are a monster or alien

For more tips on keeping you and your family safe, visit us online!

Help support!

As it is National Preparedness Month, the Walden Galleria Mall is teaming up with the American Red Cross to promote Disaster Preparedness! This Saturday from 11am-2pm, you’ll be able to talk with American Red Cross representatives who will be on the lower level of the Galleria Mall (just outside of Sephora) handing out preparedness information, including a sample disaster kit and kid friendly preparedness materials and coloring books.  The preparedness information is to help educate the community on the importance of being prepared, especially after our close encounter with Hurricane Irene.  Although she didn’t cause a lot of damage here in the Western New York community, others weren’t as lucky.  Now is the time to get prepared in case there is another hurricane or other disaster, and the information that we’ll be handing out at the mall will do just that.

Speaking of Irene, we are continuing to help those impacted by Hurricane Irene.  To date, the Red Cross has served more than 1.6 million meals and snacks and provided approximately 58,000 overnight shelter stays since the storm made landfall on August 27th.  Over two dozen Red Cross staff and volunteers from the Western New York region remain on deployment to assist with the Hurricane Irene relief efforts in New York State and New England.  The Red Cross relief efforts are currently estimated to cost between $10-$15 million.

To help with this relief effort, there will be a collection canister for the Disaster Relief Fund located at the customer service desk, and a second canister will be available with Red Cross representatives near Sephora. 

 “We are extremely thankful the support of the Walden Galleria,” said Jerilyn Hickey, Director of Major Gifts.  “It is only because of the generosity of the American public that the Red Cross can be there to help our neighbors in need here at home, across the country, and around the world.  And promoting the importance of being prepared, the Galleria is helping to make sure Western New Yorkers are ready should a disaster hit here.”

To learn more about our disaster relief efforts, please click here.

To make a contribution to our relief efforts online, or to learn about other methods of giving, please click here.  

It's preparedness month!! Day 8

Photo courtesy of dvorak.org

It's preparedness month! And we’re celebrating with 30 days full of tips on our favorite topic… preparedness!! If you’ve missed out on any of them, click here to take a trip through the month of September and catch up!! 

Preparedness Tip #8

Teach your children how and when to call 9-1-1 or your local Emergency Medical Services number for help.  Post these and other emergency telephone numbers by telephones.


Although dialing 9-1-1 seems like an easy task, children (and even adults!) can become flustered during an emergency and forget how to dial 9-1-1.  Writing emergency numbers down and having them near your phone will take stress off of the situation.  You should also review when, why, and where you should be calling for help, depending on the situation.