Are you & your animals prepared for evacuation?
Does your family’s emergency plan include your animals? Planning and preparation are critical when it comes to protecting the health of your family, pets and livestock. Napa CART has lists of recommended items for your Pet and Home Emergency Kits.
Resources
1. Sign up for the NIXLE ALERTS advisory system. You will then get warnings of possible incidents in your area. For details and to download the app powered by Everbridge, go to https://readynapacounty.org/214/Alert-Napa-County (opens in a new window.)
2. Review and download the Napa CART “Emergency Preparedness Checklists” (PDF opens in a new window). Download the AVMA “Saving the Whole Family Booklet” (opens the AVMA page in a new window) that includes detailed information on assembling emergency kits and plans for a wide variety of animal species.
Complete a “Pet Identification Sheet” (PDF opens in a new window) for each pet and attach a recent picture of you and them. Download the completed sheet and place it in a laminated sleeve. Pull the sheet out on a Red Flag Day and post in a visible spot near your pet food storage area. If you are unable to return to your pets, this sheet will provide a road map for care.
Note: the link will open the PDF in a new tab; you can download and print out the sheet or fill in the sheet online. If you fill in the sheet online be sure to save the PDF to your computer so that your information is saved.
3. Review the Checklists for your, your family and your animals. There is nothing mandatory about them, but they are the product of experiences from many wildfire incidents. Most first responders and Napa CART volunteers have a “Go Bag”. Do you?
4. Know in advance what you are going to do with your animals and yourself. Trying to figure it out during an emergency is wasting valuable time and often results in poor decisions.
5. Follow Napa CART Facebook page (opens in new window) and website for current information and resources during a disaster.
Disaster Preparedness For Horse Owners
UC Davis Veterinary Medicine International Animal Welfare Training Institute provides a number of training opportunities and online resources at its website. Of particular note, see the UC Davis Center for Equine Health Horse Report (PDF opens in a new window) regarding disaster preparedness for horse owners.
PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS)
When certain weather conditions are forecasted, PG&E may proactively shutoff power to certain areas to decrease fire risk. Depending on the duration of those weather conditions and the process by which power gets restored, it may be several days before power is back on after a PSPS event. PG&E has a resource page dedicated to these Public Safety Power Shutoff outages (opens the website in new window).
Wildfire
Are you Ready for Wildfire? (opens website in a new window) The Napa Communities FireWise Foundation created the Defensible Space Reference Guide (opens the website in a new window), a comprehensive, yet easy-to-understand source of information on defensible space planning and practices.
Flood
UC Davis Veterinary Medicine and the Western Institute for Food Safety & Security provide flood preparedness, response and recovery information for:
General Livestock (opens a PDF in a new window)
Horses (opens a PDF in a new window)
Our thanks to Halter Sonoma for sharing this checklist on flood safety. Iowa State University provides Flood Safety recommendations for both pets and livestock.
Additional Resources
Pet and Animal Emergency Planning
Does your family’s emergency plan include your animals? Planning and preparation are critical when it comes to protecting the health of your family, pets and livestock. Napa CART has lists of recommended items for your Pet and Home Emergency Kits (opens PDF in a new window). The AVMA provides free electronic downloads of their publication, Saving the Whole Family. This booklet includes detailed information on assembling emergency kits and plans for a wide variety of animal species.
Our own Napa County has a website dedicated to emergency preparedness here ReadyNapaCounty.org (opens in a new window) and directions for creating Disaster Planning and First Aid Kits (opens website in a new window) for large and small animals. The county also provides additional emergency preparedness links here Preparedness (opens in a new window.)
UC Davis Veterinary Medicine International Animal Welfare Training Institute (opens website in a new window) provides a number of training opportunities and online resources at their website. Of particular note, see the UC Davis Center for Equine Health Horse Report regarding disaster preparedness for horse owners (opens PDF in a new window).
The Department of Homeland Security’s Ready.gov website (opens in a new window) has an entire section devoted to emergency planning for your pets and animals.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention also provides helpful information on Pet Safety in Emergencies (website opens in a new window).
Review the Napa CART Individual Disaster Preparedness Presentation for an outline of preparedness planning information (PDF opens in a new window).