FEMA Course Question?

[marianne202]

I'm thinking about the FEMA courses because I have a long background in EMS and the school I work at is just starting to do disaster preparedness, mostly for a school shooting incident. I think it can't hurt to have this knowledge when you are responsible for a classroom of students, even if they are adults. Funny story about preparedness - we moved to NC from AZ 7 yrs ago. We moved here in July the first week of Dec we had a crippling ice storm and were without power for 5 days. Being new I listened and did what the news stations said. I had food, water, gas, propane & money etc. We didn't have a generator or fireplaces that worked well, we knew they needed repaired when we moved in, but hadn't got around to fixing them. We live in a small rural town in a small neighborhood of 15 houses. We were the only ones who stayed. Everyone else left after 24 hrs to go to friends, family or their beach houses or farms where they could live more comfortable. We stuck it out with constant fires, living in one room and "camping" out in the house. I filled every container and ziplock I had with ice/snow and filled every crevice of my fridge and freezers. We only lost bakery items and ice cream! All our other food stayed fine! The neighbors would call and ask us to check on their houses, pipes etc. A neighbor who left on day 2 left us his little generator and that helped as we cycled running the fridge and freezers for little while each day. So who would have thought that the newbies from AZ would fair better in an ICE storm than the natives! We were surprised as were the neighbors. We now have wood burning inserts & a nice generator as well as emergency kits and I always prepare like it the event will happen. It may be overkill, but we survived in a house for 5 days that was only at 34 degrees inside even with our best efforts ( we didn't think about tenting off a few rooms to keep the heat in!) but overall I think we desert rats did a good job...because I listened! I wish everyone would! We may get tired of hearing the warnings every year, but the majority don't listen and as long as people get hurt or die as a result of not preparing they will continue to do it. Thank goodness. My neighbors laughed at me "going overboard" my family survived because I did! I will always take all the free training or advice I can get, you never know when I may need it!