RED CROSS OFFICIAL OFFERS ADVICE ON PREPAREDNESS

By Ray King/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Sunday, February 21, 2010 1:00 AM CST

The executive director of the Southeast Arkansas Chapter of the American Red Cross told members of a civic group they need to be prepared, just in case there is a disaster like an earthquake.



Donna Booth Johnson, Executive Director of the Southeast Arkansas Chapter of the American Red Cross, goes over what should be in your emergency kit. Pine Bluff Commercial/Ralph Fitzgerald

Explaining that the state sits in the middle of the New Madrid Fault, Donna Booth-Johnson told the West Pine Bluff Rotary Club "if it happens, it's going to be a big one."

"You need to be prepared to take care of yourselves for at least 72 hours," Booth-Johnson said.

She said a study by the Center for Earthquake Education and Technology Transfer at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock indicated that Jefferson County could receive various degrees of damage, ranging from very strong to destructive, if an earthquake were to hit.

Booth-Johnson recommended preparing a disaster survival kit, including medications, bottled water, prepared foods such as peanut butter and products like toilet paper, duct tape, first-aid kit, radio and even some cash.

Rather than keep the kit in a home, she suggested keeping it in an automobile, because a strong earthquake could damage a home significantly.

"Your car might be safer unless it happens to be sitting in a garage," she said.

Booth-Johnson said the local chapter of the Red Cross has buckets available for sale containing many of the necessary items.

"We sell them strictly at our cost," she said. "We don't make anything off them."

On another subject, Booth-Johnson updated the work of the Red Cross in dealing with the recent earthquake in Haiti, saying that in the first month, workers on the ground had aided 1.3 million people, "and we're continuing to aid hundreds of thousands of people now."

She said more than 25 million liters of bottled water has been delivered, enough for 320,000 people; more than 20,000 have received health care, more than 1,000 per day, and 450 latrines have been installed.

"This has been the most complex and challenging effort in recent history," Booth-Johnson said, "and it's not going to be a quick fix."

The Red Cross has already spent $80 million of the $276 million donated for disaster relief in Haiti, she said, with 69 percent of that going to pay for food and water.

"Two-hundred seventy-six million sounds like a lot, but it's really not when you're dealing with something like this," Booth-Johnson said.