Protecting the Home Front
By: Source: AARP Bulletin Today Date Posted: 2003-06-26 11:43:16
With terrorist groups openly threatening to attack the United States, disaster experts tell Americans their safety, health—even their lives—may one day depend on a sturdy portable radio and three gallons of bottled water.
Experts on aging say those kinds of practical disaster supplies will be especially critical for older people who are frail, disabled or alone.
But the need to stock emergency supplies should not be traumatizing.
"People need to know how to prepare for a terrorist attack, just as they have learned to prepare for tornadoes, hurricanes and floods," Tom Ridge, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, told the AARP Bulletin.
Ridge says his office is working with volunteer agencies across the country to get emergency information out to older citizens, urging them to think about the unthinkable, and plan for it. "We can greatly increase our ability to protect ourselves if we take three steps—make a kit, make a plan and get informed," he says.
"It's really important to let every single older person know they should prepare for an attack on their own," stresses Nora O'Brien of the International Longevity Center-USA in New York.
O'Brien, an expert on aging, studied what happened to older people living near the World Trade Center in the days following the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on New York.
The study, released just months ago, found that despite heroic efforts, hundreds of older, frail, disabled people in the area were overlooked—left behind for days in buildings that had been ordered evacuated. Home health care aides were denied access to the "frozen" area near the disaster and could not deliver meals, medicine or oxygen. Local telephone service worked only sporadically, making it hard to call for help.
O'Brien says local and state agencies today are working to better identify people who will need special help in a disaster.
But there also are steps individuals can take to be prepared.
"What we've learned is that older people with special needs must get on emergency lists, before an emergency," she says. "And all older people need to think about how they can live on their own for 24 to 36 hours after a disaster."
About 80 percent of all Americans age 65 or older are not on any social service agency's list, she says. While many of these are healthy, capable people, some do need help.
To get on a special-needs list to be checked during an emergency—or to place a relative's name on one—O'Brien says to call the local fire department or area agency on aging. (Call the Eldercare Locator at [800] 677-1116 between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. Eastern time Monday through Friday for your local area agency on aging. Give them a ZIP code, and they can locate an office near you.)
The next step is to prepare a home disaster kit.
Most experts say to keep home preparation kits basic—a three-day supply of nonperishable food and water (one gallon of water per person each day) and important medicines. Include a portable radio and flashlights, with extra batteries.
There are scores of helpful websites and booklets detailing what to stock and what to do in case of an attack. [See For More Info on Disaster Preparedness.]
And there are two key contacts.
"If you have questions about how to prepare, call your local chapter of the American Red Cross," says Carol Hall, the organization's manager of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism program.
Irma Tetzloff, disaster assistance coordinator for the federal Administration on Aging (AOA), says, "Area agencies on aging can answer questions, make referrals, help you get assistance you may need following a disaster event."
Caregivers and those who wish to help older relatives also can use those two contacts—the Red Cross and a local area agency on aging—for advice and referrals.
The Red Cross and the AOA have several other recommendations:
- Make a list of your prescriptions and the doses. Give the list to a caregiver, neighbor or relative, and keep a copy in an emergency kit at home.
- Never be without a week's supply of vital medicines. If that's a problem, get help from your doctor.
- List emergency telephone numbers—fire department, caregiver, doctors and relatives, including someone who lives at least 100 miles away. During the Sept. 11 crisis, local phone service and cell phone networks were overwhelmed, but long distance functioned.
Those who have older relatives in assisted living or in a nursing home may want to contact the facility and ask about its emergency plans. If the administrators sound vague or unprepared, "that's unacceptable," says Lara Shane, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security. Alert authorities to the problem, she says, by calling your state health department and asking for the agency that oversees nursing homes.
In the wake of a terrorist strike, people near the attack area may be asked to "shelter in place," which means remain where you are. And that's when emergency supplies will be needed—food, water, routine medicines and the radio.
"We don't recommend buying a gas mask or stockpiling various antibiotics or potassium iodide," says Von Roebuck, a spokesman with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Some gas masks are hard to fit properly, and, he says, antibiotics can be dangerous if administered incorrectly. Moreover, it would be impractical to try to stockpile drugs for every possible threat.
If a bioterrorist attack occurs, and deadly germs are released, it probably won't be evident until days later when people exhibit symptoms.
"Once we know what we're dealing with, the CDC will inform the public and provide the proper drugs," Roebuck says.
Taking steps to prepare for a terrorist attack may strike some Americans as useless. The threat may seem too remote—or too overwhelming.
But David Ropeik, director of risk communication at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis in Boston, says taking charge and making plans is a prudent, healthy response—"like checking the batteries in a smoke detector. It just makes sense."
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