[AUDIO DESCRIPTION]

Logo: Guide Dogs for the Blind

Title: Emergency Preparedness 

Presented by GDB Client Andrea Barnhurst

This presentation was recorded via Zoom and is hosted by Theresa Stern, GDB’s Vice President of Interdisciplinary Client Services and Engagement. Both Theresa and Andrea are shown on screen when they are speaking. 

[THERESA]
All right, everyone. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the second day of our - well, second day of programming for our virtual GDB reunion. I am just thrilled that when I sent out an invite for people to present that I got so many great offers. And one of them that I've been most excited about we're going to have tonight. And then we also heard from - some other people had heard this particular speaker not too long ago and said it's amazing, so a lot to live up to. But I think it's just really important.

So we're going to be talking today about emergency preparedness. And our speaker is Miss Andrea Barnhurst who's a GDB grad. And she's going to give us some great information. I think it's super relevant these days. It seems like there is just something crazy going on somewhere in the world all the time. So, and I don't think that any of us are prepared enough, and I don't think a lot of attention has been given to people with visual impairments or people with disabilities in terms of letting us know how we can best prepare. So with that said, I am super excited to introduce Andrea.

[ANDREA]
Hello. So my name is Andrea. And I'm going to talk about disaster preparedness, but from the perspective of a visually impaired person. My story is that I was not introduced to disaster preparedness as a kid. My parents never talked about it. We never had go bags. We never had food storage. Nothing. We just didn't talk about it. And we lived through the '89 quake that rocked the Bay Area and dropped the Bay Bridge. And you would have thought that that would have made us talk about it, but it didn't. 

We then moved to Oregon shortly thereafter, and I lived through windstorms, ice storms, snowstorms. I lived through the floods. I lived through the spring break quake. And again, we never talked about it. I had no idea. It actually was not until I married my husband, who was raised around disaster preparedness, that I even know this was a thing. 

But he kept telling me we needed to buy this, and we needed to buy this, and we had to have this. And we were living paycheck to paycheck barely. Anything extra - sorry, my screen has decided to turn blue on me. Any extra we had went to treating my daughter, or it went to just general everyday stuff. And so we didn't get prepared. 

And then I went legally blind. And this thought of disaster preparedness just was not something I even wanted to talk about because it just complicated things even more. And I just kept hearing all of these phrases like you must have this and you must have this and you must buy this and you must buy that and put it in your car, just all of these phrases that just went in one ear and out the other. And I went this isn't for me.

It actually was not until two years ago I was attending a seminar for work, and it was height of COVID, so it was virtual. And we had these great breakout sessions. And during one of these breakout sessions, I sat there, and I was looking at the three options. And none of them appealed to me, none whatsoever. And I said, okay, I'm going to choose the one that is the least worst, and that ended up being the disaster preparedness seminar. 

And I sat there in the seminar, and I listened to these great presentations, great presentations on a gentlemen who lost his home in the McKenzie River fire, listening to the stories from the Umatilla floods, and just everything else. But they kept saying you must buy this and you must buy this and you have to have this and you have to have this and put it in your car and put it at work. And it just - all of this stuff that I kept being told for years by my husband and his family and everybody else. 
	
And this time, though, something changed. And I decided that after that presentation, I was going to write the presenter. So I did. I wrote the presenter saying, "Thank you so much for this presentation. It was great. The presentations were great, except this does not work for a visually impaired person. We don't have cars. Some of us may live on our own. Some of us, probably many of us, live paycheck to paycheck or we live on such a strict budget that we can't buy things like that. We can't spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on all of this stuff that you guys are talking about." 

And they wrote back to me, and they included some other people, and they said, "Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. We actually are working with the Lion's Club to make a go bag list for people who are visually impaired." Two years later, I still have yet to see that list, unfortunately. But these people are now who we call my colleagues. I have gotten into disaster preparedness because of them, and they have asked me to do talks like this because this is a subject that even these people who may have education in it, even these people who live this life had no idea what it felt like for me and other people in this community of ours who are visually impaired and how we have to do things so differently. But what they discovered is that my outlook on certain things does not just - they just don't understand. But they also go, "Wait a minute, now that makes me think." 

And so I have since moved on to doing these presentations for the visually impaired community telling them that it's possible. And that we can be prepared, and that this isn't one size fits all, that this is not something that fits into the same box as everybody else, that we can be prepared, and it can be done on a budget. And I think that's huge.

And I have now moved into actually becoming CERT trained. CERT is Community Emergency Response Team trained. And this is moving into possibly doing additional presentations for the State of Oregon emergency managers and explaining to them that their thought process does not work for us. And the guy at my local county is super excited to join me in on their team. And he says that this is just invaluable to him, and he is so excited that I'm going to join their team.
	
So what I've been doing with these is I've been really talking about some of the stuff that I think is the most important thing, the most important thing to be prepared. And a lot of people have - they probably hear stuff about food storage and go bags. And I'm going to touch on those a bit towards the end. 

But what I really want to talk about is what I call my top five things to do to be more prepared that cost little or no money. If you can do all five of these things, you can do partially these things, you will be just that much more prepared if there is some kind of emergency. So that's what I want to talk to you about today along with the other things. So I'm going to go into it.

Number one, and I think this is probably the most important thing when it comes to being prepared for anything, and this is to have a plan, to know your plan, and practice your plan. Now this is mainly for evacuation, but this could be really almost anything. When you think about your plan, your plan could be different than, say, your roommate's plan or your partner's plan. This plan could be different than your child's plan. This plan will probably look different than your neighbor's plan. This is personal to you. 
 And what you need to think about is if you are going to have to evacuate your home, what do you need to do? Where are you going to go? How far can you do this? How far can you walk? Who are you going to contact? How are you going to get there? And what are you going to bring with you? 

I know that my plan if I evacuate with my husband looks very different than if I evacuate by myself with just my guide dog. And they have to be because I have different abilities and different skills and different ideas of what I can do on my own versus if I have my sighted husband and he has a car. So I have two separate plans. I actually have three plans because what happens if I'm at work. That's a completely different plan. So I've had to think for me what can I do and where can I go and how far can I walk if there's a disaster and I have to evacuate my home and I'm by myself. 
	
For me, this means that if I'm by myself, I'm going to be walking to the nearest location that is closest to me that will get me the resources that I need. This might be food. This might be water. This might be shelter. Or this may be transportation to an area that's safer. But for me, I'm not going to be the type of person -- and this is my personality -- to walk three days' worth to get to I don't even know where. So for me, this is me walking to our nearest fire station which is really the only emergency organization near me in the town that I live in. I may walk to the town that is closest to me, but we're talking probably five to seven miles the opposite direction, and that is on streets that don't have sidewalks or may have sidewalks and we don't know the situation. But that's just getting to the nearest town. That doesn't even count finding a place that I can shelter in. So that is my plan.

Now, my husband and my plan is completely different because he has a car. He has a motorcycle technically if we really had to and we had to make it work. But he has other transportation. He also has survival in his background. So we could survive because of him. But me personally, I'm not the survival type. I'm not the survival type to be out with me. So again, it's very different for us.
 
And I want to talk about a personal experience with why this was so important to have a foundation with my husband and I. About a year ago, maybe a little bit longer, we were woken up by our neighbor banging on our doors, "Wake up. Wake up. Wake up." We got woken up, and he said that there was a propane tank on fire at the house that was on the opposite side of us across the hedge. And this was the middle of the night. You could see the sirens. You could see the lights. You could see the sirens. You should smell the smoke. You could even hear this fire crackling. And I knew though - and my husband and I had briefly talked before, but we talked more in depth at this point because we had some time - of if we were going to evacuate, where were we going to go. 

Now we both had different thought processes of where we were going to go, but we all -- we knew we'd figure it out. His was a bit farther than my thought. I knew that if we had five minutes, if we had that emergency - they said you needed to go right now, I knew what I was going to grab. I knew what he was going to grab, and I knew where we were going to meet up. Now if we had a little bit more time, I knew the extras that we were going to be able to grab. 

Knowing this stuff made the stress in my house so much less, and we could just sit there because we knew all of the plan. And we could just sit there and just basically wait. And I know that may sound rough, but we could wait with no stress because we knew exactly how we were going to get where we needed to go. And it just relieved a lot of stress. There was no panic with us. We just sat there and sat there with each other. 

And thankfully, we did not have to evacuate but we knew where we were going to go and what we were going to grab. And that was huge, just huge because it was one less stress we had to deal with in this moment. And it would save a lot of time if you knew this ahead of time: what you were going to grab and how you were going to get there.
	
So have a plan, practice the plan, and know the plan and make sure everybody knows it. 

There's a couple other things to think about with the plan is not only what you're going to grab and where you're going to go, but if you're separated where you're going to connect with each other. And actually having an out of state contact to call. Calls will go better if you can go out of state than if you can go local because all the local lines will be busy. So having an out of state contact is super important and making sure everybody knows that contact. So yeah, just have the plan, know the plan, practice the plan if you can, and just know and try to not stress. 

Number two, probably - these are probably not in order now. They're just going to be there. Number two is to have your important documents both in print and on the cloud or in electronic format. Important documents I'm talking about are your homeowner's insurance or renter's insurance policies, if you live with a person who does drive car insurance policies. This could be your medical insurance policies, anything like that. Because when you evacuate, one, you probably won't have time to rustle through your desk or your file cabinet to find this information. You're going to have minutes, and you need to go. So having printed copies and electronic copies, super important. 

Now, why both? Because who's to say the electricity isn't going to be out? We are so accustomed to having electricity, but what happens if it goes out? You have to have printed copies because, I don't know about you, I don't know the insurance policy for my homeowner's insurance. I may know the company, but I don't know the policy number. And having that information will save a lot of time. And hopefully it will shorten the process in order for you to get the resources and stuff that you need after you've lost your home or your vehicle or whatever it might be. 

Number three is going to be to have a list, a video, photos, whatever type of list or something to see to have people help you of everything in your house. This I learned from the gentleman who lost his house in the McKenzie River fire. He said it took them a long time to write up that list of every single thing they had in their house. Because the insurance company will not payout anything that is not on your list. And when it came to the list, he had to have quantity, color, condition, everything. 

And he said it was a big process. He first wrote the list, and then he wrote the list again and added more. And then they told him to draw floor plans of your house and write down what was in every single drawer of your dresser or your nightstand. And then they told him to go on to social media and to look at all the photos that were on their social media or on their cloud to see if they missed anything in their house. And they still missed things because then their insurance agent said, "Well, what do you walk on and what is on your ceiling in regards to area rugs or paintings on the walls?" We forget about things that we don't see - ha - but we need to have that list. 

And having that list electronically on the cloud, you don't have to have a print, but same with the photos or the video that just explains everything will, again, shorten the time in that you will be able to get the money to replace all of your belongings. Because again, what you don't have on the list, you're not going to get paid for. So I don't know about you, but honestly I don't know everything that is in my dresser drawer. I don't know the condition of every single t-shirt that's in there. But I have started my list, at least, and at least starting it is getting there. So just think about that. It's a long process, and it's just anything you can do ahead of time is going to be beneficial.

Number four is to have a first aid kit. Now, I'm not talking about the huge, big one from Costco. We don't need that one if you don't need that one. We probably have so many things in our cupboard that are first aid. And if you just have them in a bin - they don't have to be in a fancy case or anything - that works. I've even seen pretty simply first aid kits for less than $5.00 at Walmart. You don't need something super, super big to just get the basic first aid if there is something that happens and you need to cover a bandage until you can get to the hospital. 

Now, as guide dog users - and we probably all have other animals as well - we can't put a band-aid on our dogs. So think about their needs. Their needs are gauze and Coban and things like that. And if you're not able to have a huge amount of things, think of things that are dual purpose. They can use gauze and Coban and, guess what, so can we. So if you can't carry band-aids and everything with you as well, think about what can be dual purpose because that is super helpful. 

I personally have first aid kits probably all over the place. I have my big one in the bathroom with all of our extra stuff. My husband and I both have go bags that have first aid kits in them. My husband has a first aid kit in the car. Every one of my backpacks that I travel with has a first aid kit. My backpack and container that I have at work has a first aid kit in it. When I travel out of state, I carry a first aid kit. 

Now, my first aid kit when I travel is really simple. It's a ziplock bag with band-aids, gauze, and Coban. That's it. I don't put anything else in it because if I just need a first aid kit right off the bat, that's all I need. I need something for me and something for my dog. So it doesn't have to be big. It doesn't have to be elaborate. It doesn't have to be expensive. It just has to be functional. And I think people think well, it has to be this cute little box, and it really doesn't. Be functional and whatever works for you.

And my last item on this - I have some personal experience with this as well. This is to have both electronically and in print copy your medical information for every person in your home and your animals. This could be vaccines. This could be allergies. This could be medical information that is your health history. This could be any little quirks that your body has, your eyes have, and to have it both in print and electronically. Because again, if there's a natural disaster - I know we're all accustomed to having medical portals or MyChart, but those could be down. And then you or your loved one is going to have to remember all of your medical information. 

I have a couple experiences with this. One of them, I was really sick, and I remember didn't have this, but I remember sitting there while I was feeling okay at home and making my husband write down all of my medications, all of the names of my doctor's offices, all of the information that we needed that could have been important if I could not talk. 

Now, this also goes with when my daughter was very young - she's 21 now and survived this incident - but when she was very young, just a couple months old, she turned blue on me and was stopped breathing. When the paramedics were called, she had started breathing by this point, but they kept asking me questions as the parent. And I was in shock. I couldn't talk. I couldn't think. I couldn't do anything. Thankfully, I had other people will me who could tell them my daughter's medical history. She wasn't very old, so it wasn't very extensive. And they could talk to them because I could not believe that my two month old daughter was blue. And if I would have had something in writing, we could have just handed it to the paramedic, but we didn't. And thankfully, I had a family member with me who could explain everything because I couldn't. And this happens. When there's an emergency, we don't know if the person with us is going to know about us. We don't know if we're going to be alone and it's going to be a wellness check. And then all of a sudden the paramedics are there. 

And I know something for me at least, my eye doctor has told that me that whenever I am traveling, wherever I am, I need to have something that says that my pupils do not react normally. He says I need to have this on me because if there is an emergency and I cannot talk, the paramedics are going to think that I have brain damage because of the way my eyes react. And that may not be the case, but that's what they're going to fixate on first. And that is not the case. 

So think about things like that. Little things that maybe unique to you that is going to be important in an emergency and have them places. I bring these with me when I travel. I bring these in my go bag. I have them in my kitchen on my refrigerator. I have then everywhere, and these are for, like I said, my guide dog, my husband and I and our cat, everything. Because you never know where you're going to be or who you're going to be with if there's an emergency and somebody in your household needs to seek medical attention.

Like I said, these are the top five, very inexpensive if they cost anything at all. They might need some help, you might need some help doing these, but if you can do any of these, all of these, part of these, you'll be that much more prepared if there's a disaster. 

Next thing I want to briefly touch on is food storage. Now, I don't know a ton about food storage. I'm going to tell you. My story is pretty short here. I have learned over my two years plus, but I'm still learning about food storage. And I'm sure there's more people who know more about this than I do. Unfortunately, my husband keeps saying we need to have food storage and when I ask him what needs to go in it, he says talk to my mom. And I talked to his mom, and she's like, "Oh, well it sounds like you have everything." Okay. Well, I'm supposed to need more. "Well, what do you need?" I don't know. So then I talk to my husband. "Well, your mom says we have everything. What do we need?" "I don't know. Just keep talking to my mom." 

Well, that doesn't help me. But basically what I've learned is food storage, one, is not only for three years down the road. Food storage could be for anything. It could be because there's an ice storm and you need to shelter in place and you can't get to the grocery store. Food storage could be because the shelves are empty like they were early COVID. Food storage could be because you have to isolate for one reason or another and nobody can bring your groceries. And food storage could be two years down the road when there's a big natural disaster and you need that food.

So food storage really needs to be two things. It needs to be food that you can cook if you have electricity and water, and it needs to be pre-made stuff like soups and chilis and canned meats that you can eat without heating or without cooking. Now, don't go buy Spam if you don't like Spam. Don't put things in there that you don't like. 

But then on the opposite thing of there, when there's a disaster or when you are almost running out of food or whatever the case may be, there are going to be foods that are going to seek you the comfort and the endorphins that you need. So think about those. If you want to have a packet of taco seasoning, such that you can have some chicken tacos instead of just plain chicken for dinner, doesn't that sound better to a lot of people than just eating plain chicken? You're going to have some kind of endorphins. You're going to have flavor. Maybe your weakness is the Little Debbie's Brownies. Go ahead and put them in there. That's fine because they're going to give you some kind of comfort that you need at that time when your stress level is high.

Food storage, not the same for everybody. And again, it does not have to - one sec - it does not have to happen all at once. If you're buying groceries and you're on an extremely fixed budget, think about stuff that you can buy inexpensively that you eat already or just double up what you're buying. So if you're going to buy spaghetti and pasta sauce to have for dinner this week, why not buy a second one of each of those, and guess what, you now have at least one meal in your food storage that's sitting there that you can eat. And don't let things go dusty. So cycle them through. But again, think of things that you eat already to put into your food storage and bottled water.

Bottled water is another important one. I learned that one the hard way. We live on a well, and every time the power goes out, we lose water. And I always forget that we need water. I don't know why. It's just one of those that I always seem to forget. But we now have water. But yeah, so it doesn't have to be a lot. It can be as much or as little as you're capable of doing. But again, just any little bit is what is important because it's just going to give you that much more that you're going to have. 

This includes paper products, toilet paper. I think all of us remember the toilet paper shortage of 2020. Think about toilet paper in your house because I think a lot of people forget. And that could be just one extra roll. It doesn't have to be a big 24 pack or however many come in a Costco bag. Again, it just has to be one or two rolls that you can constantly be putting in there.

So the last thing, which it would be amazing if I could show these, but this is go bags. Some people call them 72-hour kits. Some people call them go bags. I think it depends. I like calling them go bags because when it says go bag, it just means you're going to grab it and you're going go. It doesn’t have 72 hours' worth of everything in it. This was another thing my husband really talked about. We need to have go bags. And again, I kept asking him, "Well, what goes in a go bag?" "I don't know. Talk to my parents." He had concepts. He's grown since then.

But again, we just kept talking about what goes in these. And it happened to be in one of these meetings with my colleagues, it was a group meeting, one of my first in fact. I ended up getting a door prize and that ended up being a 72-hour kit for two people by the company Stealth Angel. Stealth Angel makes go kits. They make a bunch of survival items. My husband says they are a really good company. And they make really good product. So we ended up getting this go bag. And it was great. It was great. We have - we're one step closer. And then after the threat that we were going to have to evacuate, I started thinking to myself, well, what really is in this go bag. Because we barely looked at it, and then it just sat in the corner. 

So then we started to go through it, and we started to customize it. We started to pull out these superfood bricks of sawdust. I don't know. We pulled them out, and we put food that we actually liked in there. Then it made me think, well, wait a minute what about my guide dog? What about our cat? So we had to start making things for my cat, for my guide dog. And now our go bags - this is probably a year and a half later - have evolved. And we have two go bags. I have one and my husband has one, along with my daughter who does live with us part time has one as well.

My bag it includes what I can do. It includes stuff for my guide dog. It includes basically me not being in survival mode. So it has food, water. It has first aid. It has just some basic needs that I have, basic needs of my guide dog. And that is what is in my bag. My husband's is their survival go bag. His has the tent, the mylar blankets. His has fire starters. His has the big elaborate aid kit. His has a shovel. But I don't want that survival stuff because that's not my personality. And honestly, if I have to evacuate by myself, it's going on my back. My bag weighs 15 pounds. And I can carry it, probably not super far, but I can carry it. My husband's bag weighs 35 pounds. And I looked at him and I said, "I really hope you have a car to carry this in because you're not going to be walking too far." And it's true because if I'm walking with my guide dog, there's no way I can carry 35 pounds on my back and go very far. So my bag has what I deem as necessary for myself. 

And what I've learned in regards to go bags is and a lot of disaster preparedness is even if you explain it to somebody who understands disaster preparedness, they will continue to say. "No, you have to have this." It's like, "Do you know how heavy three days' worth of water is for you in your backpack?" And I asked somebody, "Do you think you could carry three days' worth of water on your back?" And they said, "But you have to." And I said, "Well, you don't have to do it. You don't have to do anything because if you can't carry three days' worth of water how are you going to get anywhere? But if you can carry a day's worth of water, a day and a half worth of water on your back, isn't that better than nothing?" And it's true. 

And we have to think beyond what the standards are, what everybody says you have to have. We have to think of ourselves and our guide dogs and our family and what is important to us. Which I think is one of the biggest things I've learned through this whole process is unless you live our lives, you don't know what we deal with. You don't know how we live. You don't know how we do things. And you don't understand what we are able or not able to do. And people who do not live our life do not understand. 

And that is something I'm learning, and that is something that I am teaching people because people don't think about it. They don't think about if they've never lived on a budget, they have no idea how it feels to live on a strict budget. If they don't live with a disability, they have no idea how it feels to live with a disability. And they don't know how we have to do things differently, which is why I started making these presentations. 

Because in my mind, I kept seeing all of these you must, you must, you must, you must, and it turned me off because I knew I couldn't do all that stuff. But bringing the presentations to somebody and saying you don't have to do anything, but if you can do these things and you can customize these items for yourself, and what we can and cannot do, and having a plan that works for us, that is what is important. And that will allow us to be more prepared if there's ever any kind of emergency. We can't be prepared for anything, but we can be prepared as much as we can and every little step helps. Because again, if you just have one bottle of water and you just have one meal, well, guess what? That is one more item than you had before. If you have a small first aid kit, guess what? That is one small first aid kit that you did not have before. 

You might not have everything, and I don't know anybody who is 100 percent completely prepared for everything. Even the people who work in this field are probably not prepared for every single thing. And they can't expect us to do it either. So don't think this is all or nothing, one size fits all, this does not fit in the box like everybody else's. But one step closer will get you there. And that is the point of my presentation. And I hope everybody got at least something out of this that you can grow from and that you can see that it is possible. 

[THERESA]
Oh, my gosh. I can see now why everybody was raving about your presentation, Andrea. This is fantastic. I really love how you put it into perspective about everybody's different. And I think we do feel like it's overwhelming. So it's like okay, well, I've got these couple things. That's more than I had before. I just really love your commonsense way of putting all this together. It's just really good and very inspirational. Thank you for doing that.

[ANDREA]
Yeah. No problem. Like I said, I didn't grow up this way. I had to learn this way. 

[CROSSTALK]

[THERESA]
Yeah. Because if you don't talk about it, it doesn't happen.

[ANDREA]
Yeah. And it's just like we have to do things differently. And I just don't think people quite understand. And that's why -- and it was very overwhelming when I couldn't check all of those boxes. But you don't have to check every single box to be just that much more prepared.

[THERESA]
Well, I'm going to try to twist your arm a little bit here and in front of the almost 100 people that are online.

[ANDREA]
Almost a hundred people?

[CROSSTALK]

[THERESA]
Yes. If you could write some notes up so that we could have those for folks maybe in the next Alumni News or something I could post online, no rush or whatever, but it was just - it was really good. It's probably the best presentation that I've heard on this subject. 

[ANDREA]
Really?

[THERESA]
Yeah.

[ANDREA]
Well, that makes me feel good. Yeah. I can certainly - I can get you some links to resources. I've -

[THERESA]
And just like highlighting your top five things and all that I think would be great.

[ANDREA]
Absolutely. I can. Do you want me to just email it?

[THERESA]
So Deb, do we have some questions?

[DEB]
We do. So a person with a 250 area code.

[JEN]
Good evening. It's Jenn McEachen. 

[DEB]
Hi, Jen.

[THERESA]
Hi, Jen. This is your stuff too. You love all this disaster stuff.

[JEN]
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And I actually - just so everybody knows - I'm a Community and Red Cross employee, and I've been through emergency management for a couple of years. And just in the last year, I've been doing - I'm going to be starting a whole new business, a consultant. So I'll be doing more work in educating people with disabilities on emergency preparedness, and I actually have a two-hour workshop I'm presenting tomorrow on emergency preparedness. 

[THERESA]
Great.

[JEN]
Yes. And I can also offer convenient resources as well if you want them as well.

[THERESA]
That would be fantastic. We can put those together. Yep.

[JEN]
Yes. Just a couple of additional points I wanted to add. I don't know how it works in the U.S. okay, but in Canada we have an evacuation alert and an evacuation order that comes through our phones, you know those beep, beep, beep that comes through our phone.

[UNIDENTIFIED]
Yeah. We have that.

[JEN]
And so it's really important to know the difference between evacuation alerts and evacuation orders because evacuation orders just is okay, you have time to get ready to go. Evacuation orders get out now. So that's how I describe it so people know that. 

And you did a great job - and this is what I do with my own presentation is explain to people keep it simple stupid. Okay? Keep it simple and budget, because not everybody can shop for everything, and put at least one item on your shopping list each shopping day to add to your list whatever you want. Put it in your go kit. 

And here's something cool what I do as far as the insurance medical stuff. I actually, right on my fridge, it's taped to the fridge so it's there for a medical emergency. Our BCAS - that stands for British Columbia Ambulance Service - they'll see that. It has block lettering with my name, emergency information, and it's in an envelope - they just have to open that - with all my guide dog's medical information in there. 

And I also have it on a thumb drive because I travel frequently, so I have all my information on a thumb drive too, and it notes right on the thumb drive medical information with my name on it with everything with the exact same information that's posted on my fridge.

So there you go. And if anybody ever has any questions for me or anything like that - it's too bad we don't have a chat in here -- but what I can do is send Theresa my email address for folks to contact me as well. Thank you.

[THERESA]
Mm-hmm. All right. Thank you. 

[DEB]
Sheila.

[SHEILA]
Hi. I am personally terrible at all this emergency stuff, and I don't know what it's going to get to make me better. But through the years, I have often sort of reached out to GDB and said, "You know, if you guys had told me what I needed to do for my guide dog in my first guide dog class, I would have done it, and I would have stuck to it my entire life." And it's just because it's my dog, right. 

[THERESA]
Right. Yeah. Yeah. You're always better to our dogs than we are to ourselves.

[SHEILA]
To this day, I don't even have my dog's stuff together. But I have more for my dog than I do for me. So I guess I'm using this as another reach out to GDB to say, please consider introducing this as part of the student lectures because I know that I would have - my life would have been completely different if you had told me this and got me going when I got my first dog way back when. 

[CROSSTALK]

[THERESA]
Yeah. No. I agree. Thanks, Sheila.

[DEB]
Kristin.

[KRISTIN]
Thank you so much for this information. I only wish I had it yesterday when I got the evacuation alert. 

[CROSSTALK] 

[KRISTIN]
I had a question about with - do you have any suggestions for navigating inaccessible evacuation orders maps?

[ANDREA]
So I don't know what state you're in, but here's what I've found in Oregon. 

[KRISTIN]
Oh, I'm in Washington.

[ANDREA]
Okay. Well here's - so I did a presentation not that long ago, it was probably earlier this year, where this subject actually was presented to me. And they asked me this question of when Oregon had its massive wildfires in September of 2020. They were getting evacuation notices and alerts, but the fire map was not accessible. And I'm sure we all - I  [unintelligible] a lot. And so they asked me, and I looked into it. 

Now, at least in Oregon, what happens is - and I believe it's the forestry department that works on the wildfires specifically - I think it's the forestry department. They told - I actually talked to with a guy who works with the maps. And I said, "How do we as visually impaired people read this fire map and know how close it is to our house?" And the way Oregon has designed it is that each fire has a name and each name of each fire has a telephone number. And you can actually call that phone number to find out the information you need that's specific to that fire.

So I don't know if other states do the same, but I would imagine you could probably call - if wildfires are what you're concerned about, you probably could call up the forestry department or whoever handles the mapping of it and tell them, "Listen, I'm visually impaired. I'm in the path. I'm getting these evacuation notices, and I can't read the fire map." And from what the gentleman told me, he says that these departments actually want to know if the people in the homes are going to be able to get out themselves. So this is super important information even for them to know that there could be a person with a disability in the path of the fire.

So that's how Oregon does it. And I don't know - there's also at least - I'm from Oregon so this is what I'm going off of. We have the emergency management departments of our counties, and they are the ones that also have privy to this information of how to read the maps and everything like that. So that could be another resource to be able to contact maybe before the emergency happens and say, "Listen, I'm visually impaired. I can't read the fire maps. What is the route that my state takes to be able to help me find the information I have? How do I know where there's resource centers in my area? How do I know where this stuff happens?" 

And be a little bit proactive in talking with these government agencies that can help you find that information within your state because I'm sure every state is different. We all deal with different natural disasters. And if you can be just a little bit proactive in talking with these different departments in the county -- like I said, I know Oregon calls them the emergency management departments. I don't know what other states call them.

They are the ones that deal with these emergencies. They're the ones that do the CERT, the Community Emergency Response Teams. They're the ones that deploy the resource centers, all of that stuff. They're the ones that deploy these people locally in the counties here in Oregon. So they would be the ones that I'd be contacting going I need help. Who do I contact if you can't help me?

[KRISTIN]
Thank you.

[DEB]
All right. 3-6-0 area code.

[LATICE]
Hi. It's Latice. How are you guys doing?

[ANDREA]
Great. 

[THERESA]
Doing good. Latice, you got a question?

[LATICE]
Good. Yes. Well, my thing is I wanted to go - I wanted to go back to the previous presenter about the emergency kit. And that is something that I started to do, but then I stopped doing it because I was told that my guide dog's food would spoil. I do live by myself here in Vancouver. I do have a care provider. And he only comes Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. And so we have not even discussed any of this. And so I was wondering about how do I go about getting these kits? And I have one for myself, but I don't have one, emergency kit, for my dog. He has his own little backpack.

[ANDREA]
So in regards to food since that seemed to be one of your biggest concerns, anytime I get a new bag of dog food, I change out the bags of food in my bag. So when I get a new bag of food, the first thing I do is I portion it out into three days' worth of my guide dog's food, and I replace the food that was there. That is the first thing I do. Same with medications. Every time I change out my dog's food, I change out her medications and her supplements or whatever. That's just what I've gotten into routine. If I'm changing out the food, I'm just going to change out all of the stuff that has an expiration date for her. 

And that way I know it is the best quality that I can get, at least at that point. So I know the medications will be good. I know her vitamins or her supplements will be good. I know that her flea treatment or her Heartgard or her dog food is all good because I change it out. It's just routine. The new bag of dog food comes in. I get some ziplocks, and I portion out three days' worth, and I just do everything all at the same time. And then I used those three days first when I do my dog food. Those are the first three days that come out, and we just keep going with that. So that's what I do.

[THERESA]
Great. That's a great idea. Yeah.

[UNIDENTIFIED]
Is it my turn?

[THERESA]
Yeah. It is.

[UNIDENTIFIED]
Awesome. So I heard that you have a cat like I do. So here's my question. How would you - well actually I have two. One, would you have your guide guide you around the disaster area or whatever? And two, how would you have both your cat and your dog at the same time if your husband's not home?

[ANDREA]
Well, so yeah. So I told my husband, unfortunately, if I had to evacuate by myself, I honestly - and this is horrible to say because I love our cat - I could not carry him. It's not in my ability to do so. So he is responsible for our cat. He has his food. He has his harness, his leash. Yeah. He's on a harness and leash. He's not in a carrier. So that's my husband's job unfortunately. Unless there was - like I said, if it was my husband and I, we were traveling, he would be the one that grabs the cat, unfortunately. And it's just part of - I guess part of it because working a guide, you have to be hands free and you can't be carrying a cat at the same time. 

Now, in regards to working my guide out of the disaster, I think it would depend on the disaster. I think it would depend on how fast I had to get out and the road conditions. I do have in my go bag extra gear in case I can't get to the gear that I normally would grab. I have extra gear. I have paw protection. I have a gentle leader. I have treats and poop bags and all of that stuff in case I can't grab the stuff that I would normally grab as I leave the house. So I have an extra leash, and I have a white cane. So for me, it would all depend on the situation and the surfaces and if it was safe to travel with my guide dog guiding me versus just traveling with her with my cane. I think it would also depend on what your dog is capable of doing, the personality of your dog. So I don't think there is a right or a wrong way. It would all be specific to whatever you were doing and whatever the situation was.

[UNIDENTIFIED]
Okay.

[THERESA]
Great. Thanks.

[DEB]
I'm not sure who this is, Dleo it looks like, but you're unmuted.

[THERESA]
Debbie Leon, I bet.

[DEB]
Oh, it doesn't say that. 

[CROSSTALK]

[DEBBIE]
Can you hear me.

[DEB]
Yes. We sure can.

[DEBBIE]
Okay. Gosh, probably right when I retired from work, I started making a - just all the - got tons and tons of emergency supplies and everything. And gosh, it's been so many years. I need to go back, go through, everything and take out things that I think that are maybe too old, and I just need to redo those again. But one of the other things I think of is if you are at a place where you're having to maybe leave your home, is it by radio that they would tell you where to evacuate to?

[ANDREA]
So I don't think they tell you where to evacuate to. I think they just tell you you must evacuate as far as I can tell. And the alert system, at least in Oregon has three, four stages, the get ready; and then the one, oh you have an hour; two, you have 30 minutes; and three, you have 15 minutes or whatever. They have stages. And it would really depend on what the state you live in does. And as far as I know in Oregon, they don't. But I know in Oregon they have what they call resource centers which tend to be churches, just as an FYI. They tend to be churches where you can find important information and you can get some food and water and a bathroom and electricity and things like that. But I go through my go bag everything six months. I go through the go bag.

[DEBBIE]
Yeah. That's what I should be doing. Yeah.

[ANDREA]
I go through the go bag around Christmas time, and I pull out anything that needs to be changed out or expired. And because in July was the anniversary with my guide dog and her birthday is in June, around that time is the other time that I go through my go bag. And it's just - those are the two times, those are the two dates that I can say, well oh, on her birthday I go through my go bag, and I adjust it. And then I do it around Christmas time. 

And those just tend to be - and I know the idea of what stuff do I need to pay attention to and what stuff may be lasts a couple years and just have an idea and just change it out. I don't have to pay attention to expiration dates either. I just know that if I change it out every six months if it's not something that's going to expire that quickly, I know at six months, I'll just put it back in my cupboard, and I'll put new stuff in it. 

[DEBBIE]
And the other thing that I'm doing is I do have some real big containers of a lot of supplies that I have outside of my home because if - in the Bay Area, we always think of earthquakes not as much about floods and those things but for earthquake preparedness. And I've always kept that stuff outside on my porch. But I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to put it in my backyard and make sure it's covered and safe so that if I need to get out of the house, I know that I can actually get it in an area that keeps it fresh and safe but that I can get to it if I need to leave.

[ANDREA]
Yeah. We all have to do things differently just based on where we live, what we do and how things work. Some people might put things in their basement because they're in tornado zone. Some people may put things higher because they're in flood zones. I think it all is personal and what we do stuff. So.

[DEB]
Cami.

[CAMI]
Hi. I have a couple small things. I'm trying to envision these go bags in my head. I've never seen before. So I'm just trying to envision them. And I'm just wondering sort of -- and I know that maybe they're different for different people. I get that. But I'm just trying to even envision the size of them. Are they backpacks? Are they roller suitcases? What are they?

[ANDREA]
No. They're backpacks. They can be roller suitcases, I guess. Mine is a backpack. It's a pretty standard backpack. It's not - it doesn't have to be super big depending on what your abilities are. I actually created one more recently for a presentation I did or I'm going to do where I took the GDB fanny pack that I got my grooming kit in. And I made a 36-hour go bag for myself. I have a collapsible water bottle on it. I have food. I have water. I have my medical. I have some paperwork. I have a first aid kit that clips onto the side. So it really - there's no it fits in a box. But most of the time they're backpacks. Yeah.

[CAMI]
Any sort of backpack you can buy anywhere, like - yeah. Okay.

[ANDREA]
Yeah. If you live in a wet climate -

[CAMI]
Yes. I do.

[ANDREA]
When you put things in it, put things in ziplocks because one, the ziplock will give you something else to catch water or whatever, in. But then it also keeps everything safer and organized in the bag. 

[CAMI]
Okay. And then the other part of my question is for those of us who live in small places, there's a lot of talk in Vancouver as well about earthquake preparedness and having three days' worth of food in a box or like in a case, whatever, somewhere. And I'm thinking where do people who live in small places store things? And I just -- those are the kinds of things I struggle with which is why I haven't been as proactive about this as I probably should because I just don't even know where I would even put stuff. When you've got a six or seven hundred square foot place, or even less, where do you put stuff like that?

[ANDREA]
You can put it under your bed, under the bed. You can put it under a kitchen table. You can put it under end tables. Anything that has a gap underneath it that you can take up a little bit of room.

[CAMI]
Okay. Good thoughts. That's great. 

[ANDREA]
Yeah. I know a lot of people put a lot of disaster prep under their bed. They'll put their bed up with bricks, up it higher, so they can put things underneath it. Maybe designating a drawer in your dresser that's specific to disaster prep maybe even. I think you could get creative of where you would put things, maybe adding an extra shelf somewhere. 

I know in some of the places we've lived, in small apartments, the cupboards did not go all the way to the ceiling, and there was a gap on top. And that's a great storage spot as well for things out of the way. So if you were in that situation and you needed to store a box of extra food, it might have to be shallow, but you could put stuff on top of your cupboards. It might fall off. But it would be there at least. Don't be in your kitchen. 

So I think there's different things you can think about. Think about the blank space that might be at the bottom of your closet, or you have that empty no man's land under your kitchen sink or under your bathroom sink. Adding shelves a little bit higher, putting things under your bed, just anything. They make so many different containers that are shallow or tall and skinny that can really take up some room. So just think outside the box where there's gaps of things would be my best, my best recommendation.

[DEB]
Rena.

[RENA]
Okay. My question is a little different. I live in Texas, and we've had several mass shootings. Has there anything been studies on how to teach that to a visually impaired person?

[ANDREA]
Oh, that's a good question. I actually - when I was doing the CERT training, there was a spot on there on mass shootings and what you should do. And it's definitely visual. And it's one of those - and I think - wow, that's a hard one because I don't - I wouldn't know. That's really hard. 

And I know my workplace that is - not mass shootings, but somebody coming in and shooting in our building is one of the concerns we've had, not that it's happened. But it is something that's been brought to our attention. And I don't know. I wouldn't - I don't know. That is just - yeah, it's something you have to think about. And I think it would depend on where you're at also, you know what I mean, what kind of environment you're in and if you're at work and you're around people that know you and can help you versus in let's say a concert where it's mass chaos. I don't know if there's been any studies done on the visually impaired and mass shootings. 

[DEB]
Yeah. There's been - this is Deb, your host. There has been a little bit of work done in this area. And one of the dog schools has actually done a little work in this area. And there are lots of things - I went to a presentation on this. We are too late to run through all that now, but the one item that had stuck with me that came from that presentation - because we had a lot of people that were concerned about your dog perhaps barking or - in fear of all this - and that they said the most important thing you could do is your food reward system. Because if you are feeding your dog, they are not going to bark. And they said, if you are able to run, run. That's what they want you to do. And if you're able to do that with people or with your dog or whatever and you feel safe about that, do it. But if you find yourself hiding, just start feeding your dog. 

[CROSSTALK]

[UNIDENTIFIED]
Always know where your exits are. 

[DEB]
And you should anyway, but that was the one that actually stuck with me for this was feed your dog. So we always carry extra food reward because if we were in a crisis we can just feed her, and she isn't going to be barking. She's going to be eating, chewing.

[RENA]
And that sounds so simple, but I wouldn't have necessarily thought of that.

[DEB]
That's the reason I interrupted and said it. I thought it was the most profound thing from -- it was a great presentation, but it was the most profound thing I'd ever heard. Feed your dog.

[CROSSTALK]

[THERESA]
I love it. Well, I think we're about - we're past due, I think, guys. Gosh, we could just go on forever with this. It's been fantastic, Andrea. We're going to have to have you back for some other Alumni Association thing because there's just so much good information. And I really appreciate you coming out today and informing us, enlightening us, and inspiring us to get off our duffs and start thinking about what could happen. So appreciate that. Appreciate you.

[ANDREA]
No problem.

[THERESA]
All right. So next up at 6:30 will be Rabih Dow. He's our Director of Outreach and Advocacy. And he's going to give us some updates on GDB's advocacy efforts as well as give us some - I believe he's just going to give a play-by-play on how bills get passed and legislation works and all that stuff. So anyway, it should be fascinating, so we'll see you all at 6:30, and again, thank you Andrea, and thank you Deb for being our host.

[UNIDENTIFIED]
Theresa?

[THERESA]
Yes?

[UNIDENTIFIED]
Excuse me for butting in. I won't give my background. I'm a puppy raiser here in Los Angeles area. I won't give my background as a disaster volunteer and instructor. But this has been heavy on my heart for many years. And I was at an event with alumni and puppy raisers, and I asked some of the leadership, "Well is there something - I'm concerned about some of the folks that live alone or maybe are two blind people. Is there some way we can form some kind of a network." And he said, "Oh, well, we're registered with the police department, so they know we're here so no problem."

Okay. But I don't know if that's the same in every area. And as a puppy raiser and probably most all of the others that are out there would probably say yes, we would love to be involved in this. We would love to -

[UNIDENTIFIED]
I think that's great. That's great. 

[UNIDENTIFIED]
I don't think most people do have a resource. I know here there's no such thing as registering with anything. My husband and I as two blind people, we are concerned about that. We've been sitting here listening to this and going, well, there's nowhere for us to walk to. And there's probably nobody that's going to come and get us. 

[CROSSTALK]

[THERESA]
Maybe we could get [inaudible] and Andrea together to maybe brainstorm for us.

[DEB]
Yeah. Yeah. Great. All right, guys. 

[UNIDENTIFIED]
All right. Thank you.

[THERESA]
All right. Sorry, guys. We've got to go but thank you so much.

[ANDREA]
No problem.

[End of Recording]