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Be Ready for Anything

Make emergency preparedness your New Year's resolution! As we all know, emergencies happen without any warning. Being prepared is crucial for ensuring the safety and well-being of you and your loved ones. It's not just about stockpiling supplies, it's about creating a plan that ensures everyone in the family knows what to do when a disaster strikes. This includes establishing communication protocols, designating meeting points, understanding new evacuation tools, staying in touch with neighbors, and practicing what to do in various scenarios.

Emergency Kits

One key aspect of family preparedness is creating an emergency kit. A kit should include essentials like non-perishable food, water, first-aid supplies, flashlights, batteries, and important documents. Remember to tailor your kit to your family's specific needs, including medications, pet supplies, or items for young children. Consider investing in a battery-powered or hand-crank radio to receive emergency broadcasts during power outages. Take photos of important documents that can be stored electronically. Checklist for your kit

Education and Coordination

Another crucial element is education. Regular family or roommate discussions about different types of emergencies and how to respond can help reduce panic and confusion during an actual event. Make sure the plan includes how to get in touch if you are in separate locations. What if cell towers are out? Practicing drills for various scenarios, such as a fire or earthquake can make rapid responses second nature. Make sure to include pets in your planning.

Secure your Home

Take steps to make your home safer in the event of an emergency. Secure heavy furniture and appliances to the walls to prevent tipping during an earthquake, and ensure smoke detectors and carbon monoxide alarms are working properly. When is the last time you changed the batteries and tested them? Keep a fire extinguisher on hand and learn how to use it.

Stay Informed with New Tools

It's also important to stay informed and understand local warning systems.

Evacuations: Oceanside has joined the County of San Diego in adopting new technology to be used in the event of evacuations. The platform is called Genasys. Specific map zones were developed for Oceanside by local emergency managers, law enforcement, and fire officials. The team used geographical boundaries like canyons, rivers, freeways, and neighborhoods to create precise mapping areas. This mapping system will provide very specific evacuation areas, which will limit larger unnecessary evacuations. This will also support more efficient repopulations to get people back into their homes sooner.

This new Genasys system is already integrated with AlertSanDiego.org. Residents signed up at Alert San Diego do not need to resubscribe to get the Genasys evacuation alerts. Alert San Diego automatically sends alerts to anyone that has a landline. But if you want alerts to your cell phone or via email, you must subscribe here. You can also download the Genasys Protect app to follow your home's designated "zone."

Earthquakes: Do you have the "My Shake" app? It's a statewide warning system that can give us crucial seconds to take cover before we feel an earthquake. The system uses ground-motion sensors to detect earthquakes that have already started, and it estimates their size, location, and impact. When it detects a significant magnitude (4.5+), the system issues an alert to those with the app, providing a warning before shaking begins. A few seconds can give us a chance to take cover and brace. Details

Local Public Safety Alerts: For localized information on items like Oceanside road closures and missing people, sign up for “Ready Oceanside” by texting the word Oceanside to the number 67283 or sign up online.

Smart911: About 90% of calls made to 9-1-1 come from cell phones. When you dial 9-1-1 from a cell phone, OPD dispatchers have very little information to help you...only your number and a very general sense of your location. This can be a serious problem in an emergency when seconds count, particularly if you or loved ones have medical conditions, or are unable to safely speak. Smart911 allows you to register and provide the additional details that call takers may need -- BEFORE an emergency happens. With Smart911, anytime you make an emergency call from a registered phone number, the system recognizes your number and automatically displays your profile and information on the screen of the dispatcher. It's free, private, and secure. More

To recap:

• Register your cell phone at AlertSanDiego
• Download the Genasys Protect app to see your zone
• Get the "My Shake" app
• Register your cell phone number at Smart911
• Text the word Oceanside to the number 67283 for cell phone alerts on Oceanside public safety issues from the Oceanside Police Department.

Get to Know your Neighbors

In times of crisis, our neighbors can be a vital support network. Establish connections with those around you and discuss how you can assist each other during an emergency. Neighbors and communities that work together tend to recover faster and more effectively.

By taking proactive steps, we can better protect ourselves and our families. Remember...preparedness is key to navigating emergencies with confidence and resilience.

Join CERT

CERT is Oceanside's Community Emergency Response Team, a group of dedicated volunteers that are trained in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization, and disaster medical operations. View the CERT website for more information.