Quick Question: What's the Best Way to Plan for Emergency Communication with My Family?

Technology and communication plans can save your life during a wildfire, hurricane, tornado…and any other disaster or crisis. But it means NOTHING unless your family knows that plan too.

Here are 3 technology tips you and your family should align on as a part of your family communications plan

1. MESSAGING APPS

•  Decide which apps you all will check first in case you either don’t hear from someone in a timely manner or you know that your/their calls or text messages aren’t going through.
• This could be a social media app or a phone call or messaging app that uses Wi-Fi.

2. OUT-OF-STATE CONTACT

• Decide on 1-2 people who live outside of your state (or at least 100 miles away) to be your “out-of-state” emergency contact.
• During an emergency, it’s common that local phone lines are jammed due to the many people attempting to make calls at the same time. However, during this same scenarios long-distance lines may be freer to make calls through.
• Remember, these could be relatives or trusted friends. What’s most important is that each member of your family knows who the designated people AND has each of their contact numbers.

3. PHONE BROKEN INSTINCTS

• This could be if your battery dies, your phone gets damaged or lost during the crisis or any scenario that would truly “disconnect” you from communicating.
• Talk to your family about your instincts: Where you would go? What you would use to recharge if your phone died? What chargers would you typically have on you if your phone died? What would be your next step?
• The goal here is to bring your family into your thought process so that should all communication be lost, they could have a hunch on where to look for you, who you might think to go to, or what other ways you would try to get in contact with them.

Still have questions about the the best communication plans for your family? No problem. Feel free to reach out to us directly. We've got you covered.