Community Preparedness
Whether you are part of a neighborhood, a faith-based organization, or a civic group, community organizations play an important role in emergency preparedness. To help your community better prepare for emergencies, take the following steps:
- Determine how specific hazards will affect your community.
- Determine which members of the community may need extra assistance during an emergency and ask if they would like assistance with their emergency planning.
- Reach out to neighbors during and after an emergency to see if they are okay.
- Take an inventory of skills and other assets within your community that could be useful in an emergency.
- Educate community members about the need for family preparedness during meetings or through newsletters and listservs.
- Promote registering for Alert Montgomery and amplify emergency messaging to those who may not be receiving those alerts.
- Coordinate community meetings and presentations about emergency preparedness with our office
- If you provide welcome packets to new community members, include our Community Preparedness Workbook and/or information about Alert Montgomery. (Check out our Resource Library to see the available languages for the workbook and call 311 to request hard copies.)
For more information and resources for your community:
- Montgomery County Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD) provide opportunities for community organizations to get involved to make the community and its members safer and more prepared for threats of disasters of all kinds.
- FEMA's Whole Community Approach demonstrates the importance of community preparedness.
- The Corporation for National and Community Service's Community Preparedness Toolkit at Serve.gov.
- Maryland Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters (VOAD) is an umbrella organization of diverse disaster-relief agencies that include faith-based group, non-profits, governmetal departments, and NGOs.