Missouri Governor Bob Holden recently proclaimed March as Disaster Preparedness Month to increase public awareness about tornadoes, flooding, and other severe weather on the horizon.

In Dallas, a new Spanish-language disaster education program will educate Mexican-Americans on what resources are available to help prevent disasters and how to respond to them when they occur.

In central Ohio, Licking County's Emergency Management Office recently reminded residents that each family needs both a disaster preparedness kit and a plan to help them cope when disaster hits.

Communities are issuing clarion calls about preparations for inevitable spring weather disasters. They say most households are not prepared for the spring thaw this year, which could come with a doozie of a tornado, rain storm and flood season, exacerbated by runoff from rapid snow melt.

The American Red Cross recently reported that a swath of central and northern New England as well as the interior mid-Atlantic region are experiencing river ice conditions ranging from one to three feet thick. In North Plainfield, N.J., Union County officials used seven half-pound dynamite charges to break ice jams on Green Brook during the first week in February.

Experts say too many households are behaving like lambs when it comes to emergency preparedness and there's a good chance spring will roar in like a lion.

Eighty-four percent of Americans say it is important to have a disaster plan, but don't practice what they preach -- only 45 percent say they have actually created a disaster plan, but 71 percent who say they have a plan have not identified the safest place in their home to go when a storm hits, according to a recent Roper ASW survey of 1,013 consumers.

"What does that tell us? Even though a lot of people think they are prepared, a majority of the people probably are not. Making sure everybody in the family is on the same page so you are not in a panic at the last minute is the most fundamental aspect of a plan," said Bill Mellander, a spokesman for Allstate, the insurance company that commissioned the Roper survey conduced in mid-February.

The American Red Cross says households may be even less prepared than the Roper survey indicates. It says only 40 percent of Americans have a response plan for inclement weather-related disasters.

"We know disasters will happen. We don't know exactly when, in a lot of cases, but we know they're going to happen. And we've been very concerned that we seem to have a huge mountain to climb to get people to be more prepared," said Red Cross president Marsha Evans.

The Roper survey also found 28 percent of Americans surveyed who do not have a disaster plan say they don't need a plan and don't believe a natural disaster will occur in their neighborhood. Another 18 percent say they've simply never thought about creating a disaster plan for their family.

Evans says households first need a plan to communicate with family members who may not all be in the same location when disaster strikes. And they need to designate a safe place where they can hunker down in their home.

"The second thing is to build a kit, assemble some basic disaster supplies, water, food for three days, medications, just some basics," Evans said.

The Roper/Allstate survey also found:

• Residents of the South were more likely to say they have a disaster plan. In the South 55 percent said they have a disaster preparedness plan, compared to 42 percent for Westerners and only 39 percent of Americans living in the Northeast or North Central United States.

• Women were more savvy, or men were more macho about disaster preparedness -- 58 percent of women surveyed said it is "very important" to have a disaster plan, compared to 49 percent for men.

Both Allstate and the Red Cross offer detailed disaster preparedness information.

Published: March 17, 2004

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.