How to prepare for an emergency – Virtual training now offered

Before the pandemic, the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) worked with departments to develop workplace emergency plans. The plan included what the department needed to do if a winter storm, tornado, or power outage occurred.

Many members of the Yale community continue working from home offices and are also transitioning to the workplace. OEM is again offering a virtual class to create a personal preparedness plan. This same training series was offered for the first time last year, and it was so successful that OEM is rerunning it!

During this hour-long Zoom presentation, attendees learn:

• How to create a personal or family emergency response plan for use at work and home.
• What to consider during an evacuation, including communication tips.
• The importance of preparing a “go/evacuation bag” and what to include in the bag.
• How to prepare for inclement weather.

“Now that many of us are working from home offices, we want to virtually connect with people more in-depth about personal preparedness and developing a plan,” said Jennifer Nolan-Pinto, Associate Director of Emergency Management.

When developing the class, the OEM Team got positive feedback from the community. “Members of the Emergency Operations Team were impressed and messaged me later that they hadn’t thought of doing that and how important it is to have a plan,” said Jennifer.

Yale has an Emergency Operations Team (EOT) comprised of 75 Yale staff from different departments across campus. They convene virtually or in person when there is an emergency. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, they’ve met weekly via Zoom conference calls.

Jennifer presented her family preparedness plan to the group. It included a designated meeting location in her hometown (the local fire department) in the case of phone and electricity outages or blocked roads and what to have in your “go/evacuation bag” if you have kids and pets.

“Due to recent storms, we realized the need from those in our Yale community to learn more about personal preparedness. Therefore, one of our department goals for this year is to focus on personal preparedness for our community members,” said George Hines, Director of Emergency Management.

“Many people, even first responders, don’t have a personal/family preparedness plan. This presentation will give individuals easy step-by-step guidance on what to think about and how to write a plan,” said Jennifer.

These presentations will be offered virtually in November and December. Attendees can register online, and the first 250 to attend will receive a unique preparedness item for their Go-Bag after the presentation.  

Visit the Emergency Management website to find out more.