Terri Medlin is New Hanover County Deputy Director of Emergency Management. She’s helped hundreds of people learn how to best prepare for storms and emergency situations. She has previously been with the Coast Guard in emergency management for the last 25 years.
“So the first thing we tell people is be informed,” She said. “Go to your vetted sources. The two we push out are readync.gov and readynhc.com.”
Those websites contain a host of resources including maps of flood plains where properties are the most at risk for flooding during storms, evacuation routes, emergency announcements and many other resources.
“So if you are you're in an area that may be evacuated, just know what your evacuation routes are,” she said, “Then tell talk to family and friends about that if you are going to evacuate or even if you're going to stay in your home, we say build a kit so that what that kit looks like is we want you to have 5 to 7 days of food, water, medications, and pet supplies.”
Medlin urges everyone to ensure they have any prescribed medications for family members and pets. In addition, each kit should contain the traditional batteries, flashlights, and manual can opener.
“I want to plug in really big for medications, because a lot of times people don't think about that, but a lot of our citizens that are on really critical medications like insulin, heart medications, things like that. We push out to have at least seven days. That way you're not running out of these critical medications," she said.
For parents, Medlin said prepping a kit should also include activities to keep young children entertained.
“We know kids get bored very easily. So we would say that, you know, provide anything for your kids that, you know, can make them comfortable in kind of a already higher stress environment," she said.
And once a storm has already hit your area, Medlin said the best thing you can do is to shelter in a safe place.
“Particularly after storms, a lot of people like to get in their cars and drive around,” she said. “[They want to] see what's happened in their community, which is completely understandable. But this is the time where we tell people, just stay where you are, where you're safe and secure, because post-storm is when everything needs to be assessed. We don't know what's happened and what type of emergencies or bad situations you would find yourself in.”
For more information on preparing for storms visit readync.gov
