Earthquake plan for babysitters
Relatively new to the area and looking for some earthquake preparedness advice!
I have a young child who stays with a babysitter/nanny during the workday. They adventure to local parks and occasionally further afield if we've agreed on it. I'm wondering how to keep a handle on where we would meet up in the event of an emergency and call phones being down. I don't know Berkeley all that well yet, so specific recommendations for meet points would actually be really welcome.
I'd also love to hear what your families do to feel prepared for an emergency. What's in your "go bag" as it were.
Thank you very much--
Elizabeth
Nov 9, 2021
Parent Replies
For a meeting place, try to pick someplace that's likely to be unaffected by fire, post-quake tsunami, etc. and is easy to get to (preferably on foot if needed) from your home and work. A park works well. Think about what places and routes are likely to be congested by evacuations or physically affected by a disaster and try to avoid them. We live in Oakland so I don't have specific recommendations in Berkeley, but we chose a park near-ish to our older kids' school, in case we have to evacuate our home area (we live in the hills, so fire evacuation is always a possibility, and their school is outside the hills). Make sure your nanny and everyone in your family knows the place and a couple of routes to get there. Everyone should also have the phone number of the same out-of-state contact you could all call to check in, in the event that local phone service is disrupted but long distance is working, which sometimes happens. If your nanny and child end up being further afield and can't get to your meeting place, calling an out-of-state contact might be a good option.
Here are a few resources I found helpful when planning evacuations and what to put in the go-bag (I ended up making my own go-bag list that condensed the best recommendations from several sources - it's too long to share here but feel free to message me if you'd like me to send it to you):
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/well/go-bag-essentials.html
https://www.ready.gov/kit
https://www.cityofberkeley.info/WildfireEvacuation/
https://lifehacker.com/how-to-create-an-in-case-of-emergency-everything…
I know it's a little tough to think about these things, but hopefully making some plans will help you feel better prepared. Stay safe!
I'm embarrassed to say that I never considered this. We have a family plan in place, but I didn't think about the babysitter. Thanks so much for posting this.