Do you want to hear something scary?

We live within a 10 mile radius of a nuclear plant. Ever since September 11 it’s been a constant worry with my family. Heaven forbid something happens to that plant. Aside from the fact we’d probably perish immediately, how would I gather up my family? My kids go to different schools and my husband works across the river. Our original plan was to meet at my father’s house upstate, however we don’t know if that is far enough to escape the danger. I honestly think we should plan to meet some place like Vermont, some place far away from the nuclear plant.

Many of us have escape plans in case of fires (if you don’t, you SHOULD!). I have to admit my family really doesn’t have one. We live on a top floor condo. We only have one door, with the exception of the balcony. We keep saying we’re going to get one of those metal ladders that roll up and keep one in the kid’s room and one on the balcony but we have yet to purchase them. I feel horrible about that too! We do have fire extinguishers but they are not going to do much good if the whole building is on fire. We lost an entire building two years ago when it burnt to the ground and displaced 10 families.

The Ad Council has a new site called Ready America that provides important information about how to prepare in case of emergencies. The information they provide is very valuable for families preparing their emergency plans.

Does your family have emergency plans for fires, natural disasters or terrorist attacks? If not, what’s stopping you?

Photo by sea turtle