The Centers for Disease Control have a link with information on health issues related to the drought. Information included on this web page is water, air quality, food and nutrition, sanitation and hygiene, recreational risks, infectious disease, chronic disease, and diseases transmitted by animals and insects.
Kim Cassel
As Seasonal Drought Outlook (below) shows peristence and intensification of the drought over much of the country through the end of the year, I share with you the leadership of the newly formed Drought NEIL (National EDEN Issue Leader) Team. The team is charged with the development of sustainable EDEN and EDEN eXtension drought preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation research based resources. Working from a Logic Model, we will be building on the excellent resources shared by Extension Specialists and County Extension Educators.
| University | Who | Phone | |
| South Dakota State University | E. Kim Cassel | Kim.cassel@sdstate.edu | 605-696-7873 |
| University of Tennessee | Tim Prather | tprather@tennessee.edu | 865-974-7266 |
| University of Kentucky | Tom Priddy | Priddy@uky.edu | 859-257-3000 ext 245 |
| Auburn University | Virginia Morgan | morgamv@auburn.edu | 334-844-5699 |
| Purdue University | Steve Cain | cain@purdue.edu | 765-494-8410 |
| Louisiana State University | Pat Skinner | pskinner@agcenter.lsu.edu | 225-578-2910 |
| University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Rick Atterberry | ratterbe@illinois.edu | 217-244-2828 |
| University of Missouri | Bev Maltsberger | MaltsbergerB@missouri.edu | 816-279-1691 |
| University of Minnesota | Phyllis Onstad | onsta003@umn.edu | 507-796-6008 |
| University of Missouri | Sherry Nelson | NelsonS@missouri.edu | 573-769-2177 |
| Oregon State University | Lynette Black | lynette.black@oregonstate.edu | 541-296-5494 |
| University of Arkansas | Deborah Tootle | dtootle@uaex.edu | 501-671-2228 |
| South Dakota State University | Alvaro Garcia | Alvaro.garcia@sdstate.edu | 605-688-5488 |
| University of Nebraska – Lincoln | Rick Koelsch | rkoelsch1@unl.edu | 402-472-2966 |
| NIFA/USDA | Bill Hoffman | whoffman@NIFA.USDA.GOV | 202-401-1112 |
Kim Cassel
Did you see pictures from last night’s thunderstorm in the Northeast? If not check out this awesome video footage of the lightning over New York City from CNN.com.
Here is a still frame of the video:
Lightning over New York City. Stillframe from a video on CNN.com.
Lightning is fascinating to watch but also extremely dangerous. In the United States, there are about 25 million lightning flashes every year. Each of those 25 million flashes is a potential killer. You need to understand that there is little you can do to reduce your risk while outside. The only completely safe option is to get inside of a safe building or vehicle.
When you hear thunder – no matter how far away it may sound – you are already in danger of becoming a victim of lightning.
What can you do to prepare you family? Here are some tips to teach everyone in your household.
Run to a safe building or vehicle when you first hear thunder, see lightning or observe dark threatening clouds developing overhead. Stay inside until 30 minutes after you hear the last clap of thunder. Do not shelter under trees. You are not safe anywhere outside.
Plan Ahead! Check your local weather forecast or NOAA Weather Radio (NWR) before heading outdoors. Stay updated throughout the day. Make a plan for where your family will go if you hear thunder. Find a safe building nearby.
What is a safe building or safe vehicle? A safe building is one that is fully enclosed with a roof, walls and floor, and has plumbing or wiring. examples include a home, school, church, hotel, office building or shopping center. Once inside, stay away from showers, sinks, bath tubs, and electronic equipment such as stoves, radios, corded telephones and computers. Unsafe buildings include car ports, open garages, covered patios, picnic shelters, beach pavilions, golf shelters, tents of any kinds, baseball dugouts, sheds and greenhouses.
A safe vehicle is any fully enclosed metal-topped vehicle such as a hard-topped car, minivan, bus, truck, etc. While inside a safe vehicle, do not use electronic devices such as radio communications during a thunderstorm. If you drive into a thunderstorm, slow down and use extra caution. If possible, pull off the road into a safe area. Do not leave the vehicle during
a thunderstorm. Unsafe vehicles include golf carts, convertibles, motorcycles, or any open cab vehicle.
Here are some other tips to remember:
Remember to be safe this weekend. And when thunder roars, go indoors!
Did you know that in times of a disaster that you may have better luck sending a text message than making a phone call. Text messages can often get around network disruptions when a phone call might not be able to get through.
Photo courtesy of Small_Realm on Flickr.
To help prepare your family you should teach every family member how to text, and just as importantly, who to text. Creating an emergency contact list for each family member to carry with them is very important. Be sure every member of your family knows the phone number and has a cell phone, coins or a prepaid phone card to call the emergency contact. If you have a cell phone, program that person(s) as “ICE” (In Case of Emergency) in your phone. If you are in an accident, emergency personnel will often check your ICE listings in order to get a hold of someone you know. Make sure to tell your family and friends that you’ve listed them as emergency contacts.
Did you know you can also help your family become prepared for disasters by subscribing to receive text updates from FEMA and your local office of Emergency Management? For FEMA updates and preparedness tips text “PREPARE” to 43362 (4FEMA).
Another way to get in contact with your family following a disaster could be through the use of social media like Facebook or Twitter. When the earthquake hit the east coast of the United States on August 23, 2011, Twitter was flooded with tweets mentioning the word “earthquake.” In fact, Facebook representatives stated that the word “earthquake” appeared in over 3 million status updates within 4 minutes of the 5.9 magnitude quake hitting.
So what is your family’s plan to get in contact with each other following a disaster?
Last December, and following a national dialogue, FEMA published its new initiative, A Whole Community Approach to Emergency Management: Principles, Themes, and Pathways for Action. You can read the entire document or read the highlights here.
The folks at Homeland Security Watch are thinking about the initiative and how a whole community approach will/should look if the entire community is to really be engaged in its disaster preparedness. See this post for an interesting perspective.
What does it take to engage the whole community?
First of all, let me apologize for having missed a few weeks. As some of you know, I am based out of Purdue University in Indiana. And March is out to prove that old idiom right this year; in like a lion, out like a lamb.
Starting February 29 and continuing through March 3, Indiana – along with several other states – was riddled by severe storms and tornadoes. I have since been responding in the southern part of Indiana.
But now it’s time to get back on track a bit, at least keeping the blog updated again. 
Having been working with families affected by the storms, I remembered a great resource for helping children cope with the effects of a disaster. Yes, I know this is a preparedness post, but it all ties together.
Your children’s favorite furry red friend and big yellow bird, Elmo and Big Bird, along with the rest of the gang have great resources for dealing with disaster. If you haven’t checked them out before, slide on over to www.sesameworkshop.org and give all of Sesame Street’s workshops a look.
Photo Courtesy of www.SesameStreet.org
Along with their great preparedness toolkit, Let’s Get Ready! Planning Together for Emergencies, Sesame Street has developed programs helping children deal with loss.
Sesame Street designed an entire series around hurricanes, which in fact relates very well to sever storms and tornadoes. In the series, Big Bird’s nest is destroyed in the hurricane. Through activity books and videos we follow Big Bird through his experience. We watch the Sesame Street community comfort Big Bird when he experiences the initial shock and sadness of losing his home, continue with the story as everyone pitches in to clean up Sesame Street and build a new nest for Big Bird, and finish up with Big Bird settling into his new nest.
Still from www.SesameStreet.org's video Hurricane - Part 2
By incorporating familiar characters in your family preparedness efforts, your children will want to become more involved. The characters can also help create a sense of comfort and safety when recovering from a disaster.
For more information about EDEN, visit www.EDEN.lsu.edu.
This week’s post comes to you from my remote location in beautiful New Orleans, Louisiana. I’ve had meetings here all week; which means I have been away from my family all week. I sadly had to leave my husband and children at home. Not let me clarify, the children in our household are fur-babies.
Holden, the chocolate lab, and Arie, the pug
Please meet, Holden the slightly chubby overly-lovable, chocolate lab and Arie the often completely wild and insane rambunctious, pug. I know that I am the same as many other animal owners when I say that my pets are part of my family.
The likelihood that you and your animals will survive emergencies or disasters such as a fire, earthquake, flood, tornado or terrorist attack depends largely on emergency planning.
If possible, if an emergencies or disasters force you to evacuate your home, take your pets with you. However, if you are going to a public shelter, understand that animals may not be allowed inside. For example, Red Cross disaster shelters cannot accept pets due to health and safety regulations. Service animals that assist people with disabilities are the only exception. Make plans for shelter alternatives that will work for both you and your pets.
Be prepared for an emergency or disaster. Assemble animal emergency supply kits and develop a pet-care plan that will work whether you decide to stay put in an emergency or evacuate to a safer location. Keep in mind that what is best for you is typically best for your animals. Create kits for each pet for at least three days, and store the supplies in a pet carrier that’s ready to go.
In the event of evacuation, do not leave pets behind. However, if it’s impossible to take them, make sure plenty of dry food and water are available.
For more information look at the EDEN Family Preparedness Course or FEMA’s Information for Pet Owners page.
If you were to lose power in your home for three days, what would you eat? Food from the refrigerator? No longer good. Food from the freezer? Not an option either. Microwave something? No power, remember.
Maybe you should start thinking now about what you could cook from the ingredients you have in your disaster readiness kit or your kitchen pantry right this moment.
Take a look around, what do you have? You can heat that can of ravioli up of a fire, same for the baked beans and cans of soup. But don’t stop there, think harder. What can you create from these items?
Well, I’ll be honest; my go-to comfort food is chicken pot pie, it’s perfect for sad days, cold days, and really ANY day. And yes, I know there are no two people that make it exactly alike, but I have to say my mother’s recipe is pretty fantastic. However, if my power is knocked out for several days on end I’m not going to be able to use those chicken breasts in the fridge or make pie crust from scratch like the recipe says. I will be able to make my disaster ready chicken pot pie though. Check out how using canned ingredients can create relatively the same meal.
Now that sounds more like a family meal. Be creative, but plan ahead. When making your disaster readiness kit plan meals ahead that will feed your whole family. Canned ingredients may seem simple, but they can make some of the best meals.
What did you find when you looked in your fridge? Share with us some of your disaster ready meal ideas.
We are rolling out something new this week, Family Preparedness Fridays. Each Friday we will highlight a way you can get your family prepared for a disaster.
What better way to help get the family prepared for the next disaster than to get the kids involved. Have the kids help complete the word search below, then use the word list as a starting point for collecting items for your family’s disaster preparedness kit. Most of these items can be found around the house, so grab a box or tote and let the family start getting prepared!
To complete this puzzle online click here. For a printable PDF click here.
More resources on Family Preparedness are available on the EDEN website by clicking here.
Has the earth moved beneath your feet lately? When I checked the USGS site this week, there were 935 earthquakes recorded for the past eight days in the 48 conterminous states, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Those earthquakes in the conterminous (great word!) states occurred from California to Massachusetts.
The 2012 Great ShakeOuts begin in February with the Great Central U.S. ShakeOut. On February 7, more than one million people will participate in the ShakeOut. Other states, British Columbia, Guam, and New Zealand will hold their ShakeOut events later in the year. Regardless of when the event is held, all have a common message. When you feel that first jolt, immediately Drop, Cover and Hold On.
What can you do to help your communities?
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