Red Cross promotes hurricane preparedness booklets

For most Belizeans, hurricane preparedness starts when a storm is threatening our shores. But tonight the Belize Red Cross is appealing to residents to get ready early. And to help the hopeless organisers in our midst, the society is promoting its Hurricane Preparedness for Dummies booklets.

Karen Diaz, President, Belize Red Cross
“This one is called “Hurricane Preparedness, Better Be Ready” and it’s a guide to what you need to do before, during and after a storm and it just sets out very easily in bullet point form, things that you can do to help yourself. And the second one is called “A Family Emergency Plan Booklet” and that’s exactly what it is. In there it tells you what you need to do and then get your family together and you have everybody say what will my role be? Even the smallest children can help in a family emergency plan; your role will be son, to make sure you grab the pillow, feed the dog, put out the cat food, whatever. Everybody has a role to play. Where will we go, who will we stay with? All the children’s clothes, do they have identification on their clothing for instance. Sometimes you get separated and nobody knows who the baby is. If you had a tag inside that said who he is it would make reunification so much easier. So those are just a couple of tools that we have available. And we have personnel at the headquarters, within our branches that will be willing to help anyone go through these guides and help them prepare a plan.”

On Thursday’s newscast we will show you how the Red Cross prepares itself for disasters.