Preparedness Matters: It's In Your Hands

Preparedness:
Asking the hard questions that need answers to Save Lives.
Preparedness Matters It's In Your Hands.

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Speaker 1 0:00

Did you know, the Centers for Disease Control says that food and medication stored in your refrigerator will stay safe for up to four hours. If you do not open the door, once the power goes off. Keep this information in mind as I share with you some actual history that occurred in the near past and history in the making today. September, 2017 , Puerto Rico's power grid was devastated by Hurricane Maria. I reached out to every local and federal political official, head of every emergency response organization on the ground, and every broadcast news and television reporter covering the ever increasing needs. It was clear that disaster would not be contained quickly, and I offered to ramp up our manufacturers to immediately produce ICEBUDDY Systems to help in the relief effort. Unfortunately, it was to no avail. Here we are five years later and its citizens and first responders are still without cutting-edge equipment that meets military specifications and has won National and International Awards. Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico today and has caused an island-wide power outage impacting 1.5 million people. That power outage has lasted all day and is still ongoing. Obviously longer than four hours. So what are the implications? I'll ask the questions you will not hear being asked or discussed on TV or the radio. The answers to these questions you need to be concerned about since it directly impacts you and your family. So let's take a long hard look at the following: 1) What has been the impact on citizens that use medication requiring refrigeration and kept it in their refridge at home? 2) What about the medication kept in pharmacies that you expect to be there when you need refills? 3) Years ago, I was Director of a large Mental Health Clinic. We had refrigerated medication to treat mental illness. What becomes of meds in all those clinics for the patients. The stress of experiencing Hurricane Fiona's disaster will exacerbate symptoms, underlying a variety of mental illnesses. 4) What happens in the 120 sites currently designated as shelters on Puerto Rico for those who must evacuate their homes? How prepared are they with what is needed when families arrive with their once refrigerated medication now being toted around in baggies and looking for first responders to refrigerate them. 5) How do first responders transport medication requiring refrigeration in the Puerto Rican heat to those residents that live in hard to reach areas. Where it may take many hours of climbing and traversing, blocked roads to reach them. The list of questions could go on, but that does not get the ICEBUDDY System's QOOLER and QPACK into the hands of the people who need it to survive. Our country failed to purchase PPEs and face masks in adequate

Speaker 2 2:58

quantities before being hit by the pandemic. They were accessible, but never ordered. The same is true of having emergency preparedness equipment, like the ICEBUDDY System that meets military specifications to help manage and expedite emergency response efforts. If those responsible for preparing for disasters do not upgrade resources available by pre-ordering and prepositioning what is needed, we will be facing this type of scenario over and over again. As journalist Dan Rather aptly stated in his September 19th Steady article, "Disasters will strike us. It is part of nature and of life. But we can prepare for them, try to mitigate the damage, and do everything in our power to lessen human suffering".

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Preparedness Matters. It's In Your Hands.