This the second in a series of articles on disaster preparedness and how to safeguard your community, save lives and minimize damage.
For manufactured home communities, emergency management experts recommend putting together a committee of residents, with the following minimum responsibilities:
- Working with management to develop an evacuation or shelter plan
- Setting up an emergency notification system for the community
- Conducting community education programs on disaster readiness
- Setting up evacuation practice drills
- Training residents on securing their property before evacuating
- Maintaining a list of residents with special needs
- Identifying members of the community with special skills, such as nurses, doctors or others trained in CPR or medical assistance, who could help in an emergency
- Preparing contact lists for relatives and next of kin
Generally speaking, this committee should consist of :
- Chairperson
- Training Coordinator
- Communications Coordinator
- Emergency supplies manager
- Residents with knowledge or experience in financial, insurance and legal issues
Depending on the size of your community, you may also want to appoint Block Captains, who will be responsible for maintaining data on their assigned neighborhoods and also be on call to warn residents in their area about an approaching emergency. If your community has a large number of pets, you may want to include someone on the committee to focus on animals.
There Are Two Major Roles For The Committee:
- Educating and training all residents about emergencies
- Actually coping with an emergency
As a manager or owner of a manufactured home community, provide the committee with excellent materials to use in doing their work, starting with this series of articles.
Committee Responsibilities:
The chair should plan and hold regular meetings of the committee to review the work that is being done. He or she should be an active participant in other activities and lead by example. In case of an actual emergency, the chairman and the community manager will be the center of operations and communications. The chairman can assign duties to committee members, such as maintaining a list of community members with special needs or residents with special skills or expertise.
The training coordinator should be responsible for planning and holding actual evacuation or other types of disaster drills, depending on what potential problems face your community. For example, if the community has a central shelter that residents can use in case of a tornado, you should have a mock" emergency alert once or twice a year. Encourage everyone to participate. This will improve their own safety