If your child was accepted to a University in earthquake country, don’t worry. Just get him or her prepared and make a plan instead.
Sending your child away to college can be wonderful and wistful at the same time. To make sure it is not a source of worry as well, come up with a good emergency plan for your college student.
- Make sure your kid knows how to drop, cover, and hold on, or as we call it, do the DCHO. The DCHO is the dance move you do whenever an earthquake strikes. Drop, cover, and hold on. Stay that way till the shaking stops. Staying safe during an earthquake is the whole point of DCHO, so everyone living in earthquake country should know how to do the DCHO. Here’s how.
- Outfit him/her with grab-&-go bag. Take a look at what we think should go in a grab-&-go bag. Your college kid may have special needs for their personal kit, so be sure to check with them on its contents.
- Provide your college kid with an emergency wallet card that has contact information for you and other friends/relatives that will make it easy for your child to get in touch after an earthquake.
- If possible, have local family friend be contact person for your kid. It will give you piece of mind to know that your son or daughter has a local friend or family member that they can turn to in an emergency.
- Get acquainted with your college kid on social media. Find them Facebook, follow them on Twitter, look for them on Vine and Instagram. You don’t need to worry about the daily tweets or updates, but with phone lines down after a big earthquake, that first after-quake tweet might be your first word that your child is okay.
- Lastly, learn the university emergency plan. Every university has to have an emergency plan so make it your business to find out what it is. If your son or daughter is living in the dorms, there will be a plan for each dormitory. Make sure he/she is familiar with the emergency plan, so if an earthquake strikes, he/she won’t be surprised or confused by what happens afterwards.
Keep Your College Kid Earthquake Safe
Once you do these 6 things, you won’t need to worry about earthquakes at your kid’s college. Planning now will make your kid’s earthquake experience just another interesting college story for when he/she comes home for the summer.
Photo Credit: Cog Log Lab on Flickr.