UPDATED – Closing out from FEMA EMI

UPDATE – Yesterday was our travel day from FEMA EMI to home.  I posted the blog below early yesterday morning just before leaving the campus.  Following the bus trip from the campus to EMI, we normally have a few hours to sit around BWI airport waiting for our flight.  But yesterday we took advantage of a great opportunity and I wanted to share that with you.

My friend Scott, who I’ve mentioned in previous blogs was also at EMI this week as a student in another class and so we found ourselves traveling home together on the same fight.  After getting to the airport and checking our luggage in, we had a little over three hours and so decided to take the light rail train into downtown Baltimore and see “Sailabration“  that was taking place in the harbor.

“Star-Spangled Sailabration”, is an international parade of more than 40 tall ships and naval vessels.  These ships sailed into Baltimore for the national launch of the Bicentennial of the War of 1812 and the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner.   “Star-Spangled Sailabration” featured free tours of the ships, waterside festivities, an airshow featuring the Blue Angels, and the world-premiere of “Overture for 2012,” composed by Philip Glass.  Unfortunately, we could only spend about an hour down at the site, but we did see some terrific ships while we were there.

We did run in to a transportation snag on the way back to the airport, but made it back in time.  As it turned out, we had fun flying home on a Southwest plane sponsored by SeaWorld and painted like Shamu.  What a great end to a great week of training

I’ve added additional pictures of “Sailabration” and “Shamu” to the slide show below.  I hope you enjoy them.  What follows was my original post from yesterday.

Well, we’ve reached the end of another week and closed out another great training class here at the Emergency Management Institute (EMI) in Emmitsburg, Maryland.  I find it interesting that while I’ve had the opportunity to teach the CERT curriculum many times this year, it has never been boring or stale.  Each class has brought a new group of students with their own unique stories and experiences.  Often, the locations are new, but even when I return to EMI, it’s always exciting due to the pure beauty of the campus and the history that surrounds the region.  And the instructors I get the opportunity to work with are the best.  They are very knowledgeable, have well-honed presenter skills and they demonstrate great concern for their students.  Working with my fellow instructors has helped me to improve my own instructor skills thereby becoming a better instructor.  Thanks to each one of them!

This week we had 25 students join us from all over the United States, and of course six of them alone were representing South Carolina (see my blog from earlier this week).  There was a lot of positive energy and wonderful ideas generated this week in our small class.  My hope for this class, as with all my classes, is that each student will return home and use their knowledge and skills to grow new programs or strengthen existing programs that will train others in the community how to become prepared for emergencies and disasters.  I wish each one much success!

Finally, let’s close this out with a few pictures from the week.

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Getting Prepared In a Year

I hope you are finding this section of my blog helpful and that you are using it to either build your preparedness from the ground floor up, or you are using it to enhance what you have already done.  If you have other tips you would like to pass on, please use the “Comment” function on my blog and drop me a note.  I’ll include your ideas in a future blog.

So, continuing on, here’s what you can do now to add to your preparedness kit:

From your local store, pick up the following items:

•             Waterproof portable plastic container (with a lid) to store important papers.

•             A portable am/fm radio (battery operated; and get extra batteries)

•             Also, blankets or a sleeping bag for each family member

Things to Do:

Make photocopies of your important papers and store safely (perhaps in your waterproof portable plastic container mentioned above?)