Emergency Services

It’s been an interesting couple weeks with the number of emergency response jobs I’ve been picking up. I was invited through Elance to apply for a blog writing job with D4H out of Ireland. In the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Auxiliary, where I serve as the quartermaster, we use D4H’s Decisions system extensively for our internal organization, and my husband Eric (who commands the Auxiliary) regularly communicates with D4H CEO Robin Blandford. It definitely gave me a leg up that I already knew a lot of what was involved in their system.

Then a couple of days later, I ran into another disaster response gig, specifically dealing with how to put long-term food storage together from home stores, purchased dry goods and similar areas to have something set back for an emergency, whether it’s a tornado, winter storm or losing a job. It’s been a joy putting down on paper the knowledge I’ve collected over the years dealing with putting back food in various forms, from smoked and cured meats, dehydrated and canned foods to root cellaring, dry ice storage and vacuum systems.

I’ve now got a few more bids out there I’m waiting to hear on, but this has got to be the most activity I’ve seen for emergency services and disaster planning in quite a while! As a first responder, I’m glad to see more people taking preparedness seriously. I’d been hoping to break into this field, specifically through blog posts and offering disaster planning and contingency services for businesses after the Joplin, Missouri EF-5 tornado swept through a half mile south of our farm almost three years ago, leaving medical records and nervous sheep in our yard (the sheep, at least, had only gotten out of a broken fence on our own farm, whereas the medical records had probably traveled over 35 miles). Did you know that over 25% of all businesses never open their doors after a disaster because they didn’t have a plan in place?

I’ve always said that an emergency, by definition, is something you are not prepared for. If you’ve made preparations, something that might be an emergency otherwise becomes, at worst, an inconvenience. If you’re thinking about putting some preparedness information out on the internet, are a company dealing with emergency or disaster response who needs updated content or are a business owner or manager thinking about putting a disaster plan in place before the next set of storms roll through, please feel free to contact me! As a top content writer, I’d be delighted to help you plan to NOT have an emergency!