Like individuals and families, schools, daycare providers, workplaces, neighborhoods and apartment buildings should all have site-specific emergency plans.

Ask about plans at the places where your family spends the most time: work, school and other places you frequent. If none exist, consider volunteering to help develop one. You will be better prepared to safely reunite your family and loved ones during an emergency if you think ahead, and communicate with others in advance.

For more information on working together, visit Citizen Corps.

Neighborhoods and Apartment Buildings

A community working together during an emergency makes sense.

• Talk to your neighbors about how you can work together during an emergency.
• Find out if anyone has specialized equipment like a power generator, or expertise such as medical knowledge, that might help in a crisis.
• Decide who will check on elderly or disabled neighbors.
• Make back-up plans for children in case you can't get home in an emergency.
• Sharing plans and communicating in advance is a good strategy.

Schools and Daycare If you are a parent, or guardian of an elderly or disabled adult, make sure schools and daycare providers have emergency response plans.

• Ask how they will communicate with families during a crisis.
• Ask if they store adequate food, water and other basic supplies.
• Find out if they are prepared to "shelter-in-place" if need be, and where they plan to go if they must get away.

For more information on developing emergency preparedness plans for schools, please visit the U.S. Department of Education at http://www.ed.gov/emergencyplan.

Employers

If you are an employer, make sure your workplace has a building evacuation plan that is regularly practiced.

• Take a critical look at your heating, ventilation and air conditioning system to determine if it is secure or if it could feasibly be upgraded to better filter potential contaminants, and be sure you know how to turn it off if you need to.
• Think about what to do if your employees can't go home.
• Make sure you have appropriate supplies on hand.