DO YOU HAVE A PLANNED ROUTE? – Voice Of The Township

As I write this the temperature outside is 10 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s another cold day in a long, hard winter. But I’m smiling because, by the time you read this, spring will be in the air. I can hardly wait, though along with the sunny warmth comes new weather challenges, like windy storms and potential floods from the melting snow. Ah, you’ve got to love our Indiana weather!

We are now leaving the winter heating season (when the number of house fires is highest) to enter the spring storm and tornado season, so at this time of year we at Wayne Township do a review of our building’s safety and security procedures. In preparing for that we talked with Chief Donald Patnoude from the Southwest Allen County Fire District. He heads up the firefighters that serve the area outside the Fort Wayne city limits to the south and west. One of SACFD’s three stations is a Waynedale neighbor on Old Trail Road.

Chief Patnoude said that to be safe everybody needs a plan for what they would do in an emergency and they need to practice that plan. “We tailor our message toward adults,” he said, “because the kids are learning about emergency preparedness in school.” The adults have so many other things on their minds that emergency planning often gets moved down the list of priorities for them. “So they are the ones we need to reach.”

In the case of fire safety, having smoke detectors in your house is a must. Not only do you need to have them, but you need to test them every month to be sure that each detector and its battery stays in good working order.

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Make sure that everyone in the household knows the fire escape plan and knows the house. Practicing is so important. Chief Patnoude said that he has his own family cover their eyes as they practice, to simulate an actual fire situation wherein visibility is often very low. “That can really show you what you don’t know that you need to learn about your planned route out of the house.” How many doors do you need to go through as you follow your path? As you are escaping a house fire you want to feel each door before opening it to see if it’s hot (meaning there’s fire on the other side), and you should close doors behind you to help keep the fire contained. “That includes the front door as you leave the house,” Chief Patnoude said, “And don’t go back in.” That can be a hard rule when there are pets and belongings you want to return for, but remember that the firefighters are the professionals, and they have the latest equipment that makes them most effective at that job.

Another vital part of your fire escape plan: have a meeting place where everybody comes after getting out, like a tree in your yard, or a light post on the street, because the first question asked by the firefighters will be “Is anyone still in the house?” The best way to know the answer to that question is to have everyone gathered together at your planned designated spot.

Dangerous weather, like a tornado, also requires a practiced plan, but in that case you want to be heading inside your house, to a basement or another interior space away from windows. A weather radio or a cell phone application that alerts you to a coming storm is useful, but those things do not take the place of using your common sense. “Watch what’s going on in the sky,” said Chief Patnoude, “because a tornado warning from the weather channel can come too late.”

As we have done our own safety planning, it’s become clear to me that in any emergency situation using your own common sense is vital to a good outcome. And I believe that our common sense works best when we can stay cool, calm, and collected. So make a plan, practice your plan, don’t panic, and watch for spring. It has to be just around the corner!