An essential part of the Medical Reserve Corps is the personal preparedness of its members. When lives are on the line, we need volunteers to be focused on helping others, not worrying about whether or not a family member is taken care of. In keeping with this premise, I would like to remind everyone to review your Family Preparedness Plan. If you do not have one, please go to www.ready.gov and download a worksheet. Please remember to include provisions for pets. In a major emergency, we may have child care available, but may not during smaller events. Please have alternative plans ready.

Up until now, our activities have been scheduled events. Early notice of events allow members the time to make alternate plans for family. However, the day may come when we face a critical incident. This will be a situation where something has happened and a great number of people need care immediately. Please remember that we do not want you to respond until you have made arrangements for the care of family and pets.

 If you are lucky to have a flexible schedule, you may be able to respond right away. But many have work schedules that cannot be changed. We do not expect people to put their jobs in jeopardy to repspond to an emergency. Just as our volunteer firefighters often cannot respond to a fire due to their job, so too are our volunteers required to stay at work.  If an incident is large enough, we will likely need you after you get out of work to relieve someone who has to work another shift.

In the next few weeks, I will be testing our call out system by sending test call down messages. The message will likely state something such as:

"This is a only a drill.... We are simulating an emergency in the (River Valley, Bethel, Oxford Hills) region. If we needed to open a (Mass Vaccination Clinic, Alternate Care Site, Special Needs Shelter) within the next few hours, would you be able to respond? If so, how soon, and for how long? Please respond as soon as possible. Remember, this is only a drill, Thank You"

The message may prompt you to respond by pressing a number on your touch tone phone, or it may direct you to call a certain number and reply by voice. Your accurate response to these drills will help us in two ways. 1) it will help us test our calling system and 2) it will help us to understand the numbers of people available to us at any given time. Of course, we will not be putting out tests in the middle of the night. Please make sure that your contact information is current in our database. Thank You.