Life & Safety with Jimmy Rios
Welcome to Life & Safety with Jimmy Rios! Get ready to dive into a world where safety meets storytelling! Drawing from his rich background as a former firefighter, EMT and safety expert, Jimmy brings you straight into the heart of safety and emergency preparedness. Episodes feature easy-to-understand tips, real-life stories, and interviews with experts, all designed to help you protect yourself, your business, and those you care about.
Whether it's advice on navigating everyday safety challenges or insights into the latest in health and safety trends, let this podcast educate and entertain you. Join Jimmy and level-up your safety knowledge with engaging discussions that could one day save a life.
Life & Safety with Jimmy Rios
Go Bags, Meet-Up Spots & Why Texting Won’t Save You
Most people say they’re prepared for an emergency… but the numbers tell a different story. In honor of National Preparedness Month this episode digs into FEMA’s 2024 National Household Survey on Disaster Preparedness... and the results will definitely surprise you!
We're discussing what households worry about most (hint: it’s not food), why basic medical needs rank lower than you’d expect, and why fewer than half of you all have ever practiced your disaster plan. It’s not about doom-and-gloom, it’s about clarity and confidence when things don’t go as planned.
Real talk: emergencies don’t wait for your Wi-Fi to load. If your “plan” is to just text your loved ones, you may be setting yourself up for stress at the worst possible time. That’s why we’re breaking down what really matters: the supplies you should keep handy, the importance of a designated meet-up spot, and why having a go-bag trumps winging it on any given Sunday.
Think of this episode as offering you some preparedness insight... without the panic. We've got practical steps that you can start today that will give you (and the people you care about) more peace of mind when the unexpected hits.
What you'll hear in this episode:
- Why FEMA’s latest household survey says we’re not as ready as we think
- The top concern people have in a disaster
- Underrated safety essentials that often get overlooked
- Why “just texting” won’t cut it when communications go down
- A simple “Rule of Threes” to get your plan in motion
- Easy wins you can knock out this week
Life Safety Associates specializes in emergency response training for corporate ERT Teams. We help businesses create competent and confident first responders who are ready to handle unexpected emergencies. For more information you find us @lifesafetyassoc or email@lifesafety.com.
Hey, what's happening? It's another Life and Safety Podcast with Jimmy and your girl, megs. Hello, today we're going to be talking about emergency preparedness because it is Emergency Preparedness Month Oot, oot, oot, oot. So during research for this, yes, we do do research. I know it just kind of sounds like we're willy-nilly. Nine and a half out of ten times it is willy-nilly, yeah, but meg's actually did some research on this one. Um, and I was like what are we going to talk about? We've talked about earthquake preparedness. We've talked about, you know, fire stuff. We've talked about other things, but what is exactly is emergency preparedness month? So we're going to just kind of, but what exactly is emergency preparedness, ma? So we're going to just kind of. So Megan found an interesting FEMA study on emergency preparedness and so she'll read a couple of quick stats and then we'll kind of, you know, jump in like we do. So, with that being said, what stat are you going to start off with, megs?
Megan:said um, what's that you're gonna start off with next? Um, let's start off with a service concerns during a disaster, because that is what my page is already on, so service concerns, not surface.
Jimmy:Yes, service.
Megan:I heard surface. Oh, I apologize.
Jimmy:Yeah, I think it's because you're talking into your hand yes, that is true.
Megan:Um so, fema, they did a help me with my words.
Megan:Survey. Yeah, thank you. Fema did a survey in 2024 about, you know, disaster concerns and preparedness and things like that. They did it across the whole US and they surveyed a bunch of different people and so they found that about 67% of people were very concerned about going without water during an emergency. So the question that they asked was in the event of a disaster or emergency, how concerned are you about going without? The following so 67% were either very concerned or extremely concerned about going without water. That was the most. The next thing people were concerned about was energy, then basic needs, then health and medical, then communication, then safety and security, then hazardous materials management and then transportation Came in last, with only about 42% of people being worried about transportation.
Jimmy:That's kind of interesting. Every water, definitely every kind of what's the needs of water or state of life only. Every kind of person has the need of water or stay alive. Before we started recording we kind of talked about this and whatnot and I for some reason thought the basic need was right behind water.
Megan:Yeah, they're pretty close 66% versus 65%.
Jimmy:But energy.
Megan:Yeah.
Jimmy:Why.
Megan:Cooking things, heating water, I don't know.
Jimmy:That would be basically to me. Energy to me is like a generator, battery pack.
Megan:Yeah, like getting your phone charged, exactly.
Jimmy:So that's pretty interesting. I would say water your basic needs like food, cooking, heating, shelter. Yeah, place these in the restroom. You know, I assume basic needs also kicks in, is there close?
Megan:on that?
Jimmy:no, I think that falls under basic needs, you know, warm clothing, things like that. So that's kind of mind-boggling, I mean. I know it's only 1%, but it's still.
Megan:That's still. Yeah, I find it very interesting and I definitely I don't know I'm fascinated by, like the ranking of this, so to speak. Like this is not at all how I would have ranked things Like for me, you know, probably would have been basic needs up there, health and medical would have been basic needs up there, health and medical wouldn't have been, you know probably second for me.
Jimmy:What's the health and medical on?
Megan:this one, it's fourth at what percentage?
Megan:at uh, 60 percent. So 60 people are worried about health and medical. Wow, especially like during a disaster, like you have no idea, like who's gotten injured, like if you have to provide, like you know, emergency medical care, first aid, things like that, I feel like that should be like a very high concern. And I don't know if that just comes from working here for so long that you know my mind automatically goes to the worst. Like what injuries are we looking at? Are we looking broken bones, life threatening, bleeding, you know, heart attacks, things like that, um, and that, like you know, need outside medical intervention. But maybe my mind just goes dark quicker.
Jimmy:But well, no, I think there's something to that. I think the other thing on the flip side of that is well, what about yourself, or your family's medicines?
Jimmy:and medical needs, not just the emergency. I got an ouchie, I got to stop the bleeding thing. To what about people that are maybe diabetic or need a blood pressure medicine or who you know who knows what right that if they don't have it's definitely going to lead to a longer or bigger issue. Yeah, absolutely, that was really interesting. Yeah, and then what were the last three? I can't see your face, I'm sorry. No, you're fine, just tell me I can't see your thing. So, I'm sorry. No, you're fine, just tell me.
Megan:Safety and security was down at number. I can count six, which is also crazy to me, Like I don't know. I feel like safety and security would be higher on the list. Yeah, and then we've got hazardous materials management, and then transportation.
Jimmy:I would love to understand what the hazardous materials thing is.
Megan:Mm-hmm.
Jimmy:Yeah, yeah, like. What does that mean? Like gas and propane and natural gas stuff.
Megan:Yeah, I imagine like anything that could be considered hazardous, like making sure that it's not being hazardous, so like yeah, like if a gas main ruptures or things like that yeah, I mean there's.
Jimmy:I mean I teach has that response, but there's like seven definitions, oh my god, of what hazardous material is yeah depending what you look like, what agency you're talking about.
Megan:So I imagine this is like an everyday person type of definition, so like what an everyday person would consider to be hazardous.
Jimmy:So gas and diesel fuel and natural gas, things like that, so like gas, like petrol, like a car, so I mean, but that's their transportation. I see that being ranked the lowest for sure. Like I mean you, can you know you're trying to get all shuffled legs? Ride your feet right. I've never heard that before, so you know?
Megan:um, yeah, and I mean shelter in place is a common phrase for a reason.
Jimmy:Sure, we shelter in place. That's something different.
Megan:So I would rank it.
Jimmy:Water basic needs safety and security, energy, communications and the rest. Health and medical. Oh, health and medical, I missed that one. Uh, probably top three. Yeah, so probably water, basic needs um health and medical safety, and then everything else fair. I agree, I agree it's kind of false to the wayside.
Megan:And some of these can absolutely be fit. In others, Like you could argue that water is a basic need, you know. You can argue that, like medical is a basic need, Sure so, but you know, with the topics we're given, and the way they phrased the question.
Jimmy:You know how concerned are you about these things and, to be fair, the stats that we're reading are it's not at all, are slightly or somewhat concerned. So is that what you're reading? The gray? Are you reading the extremely or very concerned?
Megan:I'm reading the extremely or very concerned. I'm reading the extremely or very concerned. So 67% of people are extremely or very concerned that they're going to have to go without water, versus the 33% that are either not at all, slightly or only somewhat concerned. Who are those people? I don't know. That's what I'm saying. Who's not worried about basic needs during?
Jimmy:an emergency. Who's not worried about basic needs during an emergency? So full disclaimer team. I can't really see the stats Megan's looking at. So that's why I kind of questioned that. But it's kind of like that's fascinating. It's even more fascinating now, like when I saw like the whole thing. Like what the cheese? Oh, what are we?
Megan:doing here, yeah, but it's like I don't know. I'm just I'm intrigued at what kind of person is not concerned about these things.
Jimmy:So let's play devil's advocate and say maybe the person that took the survey is it's very prepper, it's a prepper, and they have all this stuff at the house already and they're like I'm not concerned, okay, okay, I can see that. I'm hoping, yeah, yeah, what were you looking at my boobs for? We do it.
Megan:Oh, your shirt. There's a brand logo on it, yeah, and I'm confused by the N, because it's a mountain, but it's also a tree.
Jimmy:Mm-hmm, it's the forest. Yeah, it's like Tahoe Mm-hmm, I'm wearing my Ernie shirt. Shout out to the South Shore Ernie's. You know, you know. If you don't, you need to find out. It's one of the best breakfast and lunch places around, one of my absolute favorites.
Megan:I've never been Now I'll have to go next time I go up to Tahoe.
Jimmy:Yep, and across the street is Bert's.
Jimmy:You can't make this stuff up. Oh my gosh, yep. What does Bert's sell? They're in breakfast and joint, too Interesting, yeah. Breakfast, lunch and place yeah. Or 10 am, so their breakfast joint too interesting, yeah. Breakfast lunch place, um, yeah. Or tanneries, yeah, yeah. All right, you got good grass. So emergency, uh, preparedness stuff. So what was this?
Jimmy:Can you find the stat again about the um, how nobody has enough water, or something like that? What was the stat, did you? Yeah, um, so I'll try to remember and then megan can correct me once he finds it. It's, it was something like um 90 of the people don't have enough water for like 72 hours or like that.
Jimmy:Um, so water, as we're talking about, that, that's definitely, as we've established, is the number one most important thing there. I always tell people three gallons of water per person per day. It's a lot of water in a store. I get it. I get it, and there's lots of things to consider. You know where to store it, at how to store it, things of that nature.
Jimmy:But the reason why I say that is like, think about one gallon to drink, about one gallon to cook in, boil, things like that, and at least another gallon for sanitary reasons. You know, know, washing your hands, washing your face, your, your body in general, and then just washing away waste, you know it's a good thing. Um, so at least that. And think about this. You're gonna be stressed out, you're gonna be um, you're gonna be outside longer than you're used to. You might be not have your air conditioning or your fan, and you might just be doing um, there's more work, so you might be more high, the either the middle, so you're just drinking more water. So I thought that was a really interesting one. Um, can you find it? Or?
Megan:you know I'm trying to. There's so many stats on this. This is an actually fascinating thing to look at. There's a lot of stats. It's the 2024 National Household Survey on Disaster Preparedness by FEMA, but I can't find exactly the information on water. But they have it broken down by like so many different categories. They have like results by age, results by ethnicity, results by like geographic location, like right now I'm looking at the ones by age, and so it's like people that are 18 to 59 years old. You know, only 27% of people in that age range have participated in an emergency drill, versus people who are 60 or older only 7% of them have participated in an emergency drill. You know, or like people, percent of people who have an emergency plan, in that 18 to 59 percent, or 18 to 59 years old, 58 percent of people have an emergency plan, versus for uh, more than 60 years old, only 52 percent have an emergency plan. Um, and then they have it, you know, broken down by uh well, like the region stuff you just said in there.
Jimmy:How am I find?
Megan:it Results by geographic location. So let's go with that same topic of have an emergency plan 52% in the Midwest, 54% in the Northeast, 63% in the South, 51% in the West and then 72% NA. What does NA mean? No idea, but you know if you're not in the Midwest, northeast, south or West, I guess.
Jimmy:So maybe Hawaii or?
Megan:Alaska Maybe.
Jimmy:Well, I feel like those polls would be probably way more prepared. Well, that's good. It's kind of interesting that there's lots of Ritual Action Plans in places where they have extreme weather and things like that right and other like tornadoes and hurricanes and flooding and lions and tigers, oh my Whereas in California we have earthquakes and sunburns and wildfires.
Jimmy:I guess, yeah, I always don't. This is something very callous and I don't mean to just tell them callous. I don't always think of wildfires as air quote. Big deal, I think, because you fought them, yeah, um, it is a big deal and I don't again, I don't mean to sound callous. There's lots of houses lost, lots of wives and you know, but I definitely I think it's just a way of living, it's, it's preparedness stuff.
Megan:So I guess I always kind of let that fall on the wayside yeah, and I also feel like you know, like you said, you work to fight them like that was your job, was dealing with them. So I'm sure you like build up a, not necessarily a tolerance, but like a you know, you're exposed to it so much that it's just not as scary to you.
Jimmy:Yeah, probably callous. I mean, I have a callous like you can put a callus, like you can put a callus in her hand, right um this one's interesting uh.
Megan:This is uh broken down by home ownership thank you, um, but so for if we're going for if they have an emergency plan, 59 of people who own versus only 50 of people who rent.
Jimmy:So 59 and 50? Mm-hmm, Okay. So yeah, I mean that kind of makes sense Tracks. Right, If you own your house, you're going to have an emergency plan. Well, you kind of have to because of your insurance. Yeah, and it's your investment. You don't want to be out where it's going to be somebody who has to do the best, who's been rinsed, is like, yeah, I care about my family and my belongings, but I really maybe not care about the structure because I don't own it. Maybe you know.
Megan:I would argue. Either way, you should have a preparedness plan Agreed.
Jimmy:You should have an idea of what you're going to do.
Megan:Which sort of let's talk about emergency plans. Which sort of let's talk about emergency plans? I think one of the big things about emergencies is that you have to prepare ahead of time, because if you just put it off until something bad happens, it's exponentially harder to deal with it in an emergency and make up a plan while the emergency is happening versus having a plan in place. You know, there's the. The one of the sayings is like preparedness isn't paranoia, it's peace of mind. That was one of the things that I read while I was doing some research.
Megan:But you know, if you're like, oh well, I'll just wing it or I'll just look it up online, you know, like I'll look up how to use my you know little cook stove top thing that I prepared, or I'll look up how to purify water Well, what if the internet isn't working and you can't look it up? You know, like you have to know this stuff beforehand. You can't rely on being able to, like, search it up, or oh well, you know, we don't have to come up with a place where we know we'll meet, because I'll just text them and you know, I'll just text so-and-so and then we'll know where to meet. Well, what if you know phone lines are down, you have to have made those plans ahead of time.
Jimmy:Yeah, it's really interesting because I'm sitting here listening to you and I was like that's not even on my radar to text somebody where I'm at to do those things. Like we have a plan, so I don't even think about that. Like why would I need to text you if you do the plan, go to the place we're supposed to meet at. You know, get there when you can. That's our plan. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Megan:But you also, I would argue, are a lot more prepared than an everyday Joe. Sure, sure, I mean, you know, as we're reading these things, not a lot of people have a plan in place. So it's like, well, how do I know that my loved one is okay? Because I have no way of contacting them and we have no plan in place of how to figure out you know, yeah, no, absolutely.
Jimmy:to figure out. You know, yeah, no, absolutely. Um, we definitely have an emergency plan. Like our family does things like that. Something that I'm slacking on, um, this kind of always falls on me, which totally makes sense to make these plans and to kind of help out is now that our son, now that jameson doesn't live at home, he lives in a different part of the state. You know how to communicate with him during emergency. So we know, and his plan, like his apartment had food and water and things like that where he was living Probably not enough for what he eats. You know the amount of water he consumes, yeah, but he definitely has. You know, there's a plan there.
Megan:Just to add in the good rule of thumb is be prepared for at least 72 hours, so have enough food and water for 72 hours.
Jimmy:Absolutely, and it's the thing is like with him.
Jimmy:know it is where his job is to get home, you know if you can yeah, get home if you can, and home base is home base and we have stuff there that will take care of things. And then again we are a little more prepared than most. We have the ability to leave our house if we need to and we have meeting spots and things like that that I don't want to tell people about Fair, just because, but yeah, you know, so that's my lacking. So we were kind of talking beforehand that how often should you go to your emergency preparedness plan, and I think you made a really good point about saying you should have like three things to tackle or something like that. I don't want to totally misquote you.
Megan:No, yeah, absolutely. I think the three things was another statistic from FEMA where it was, like you know, from 2024 versus previous years, there's a significant jump of people who have had, who have taken at least three sort of steps towards being more prepared. Yeah, and a lot more people are doing that, which I think is great, and the more prepared you are and the more aware you are that you even need to be prepared is great. But, you know, make a plan with your family. I think the big ones are make a plan with your family, make a go bag and then, you know, make sure you have, like, enough food and water. I think are the big three ones. And if you only like, you know, by the end of the week, maybe after listening, this is like, do one thing to get you a little bit more prepared.
Jimmy:Yeah, if we're ever giving you homework after listening to the podcast, right, so three things Come up with a plan, practice your plan Right and then talk about your plan. So I guess, maybe come up with it, talk about it and then do it. Try to do something at least once a quarter. We tell our clients if you can drill into medical things and stuff like that, practice it at least once a month. That's ideal, because then you get the understanding and the idea of things. A month that's ideal because then you get the understanding and the idea of things, whereas you know we have lives, we have things going on outside of work, things like that. So maybe once a quarter, maybe you and your family just have a conversation, something we did when the kids were little, because the kids liked it, especially Jameson is I used to.
Jimmy:I taught him at a young age how to climb out a window. You know how to pop the screens out. Yeah, you know, probably not my best. You know parenting thing all the time. I taught him how to check the door for heat and he'd take the door in and the rest of the doors happened, you know. So it's not the best thing, but we always talked about and we played those things and you know at least a little bit.
Jimmy:So that was practice, our plan. And then when the kids would come home from school and I said, what do you guys do today? Like, oh, dad, we did the emergency evacuation plan. We had to go outside and line up awesome, how would you do that here, it's at home? And the kids would be like, oh, I don't know.
Jimmy:And then that's when I would lead into say, yeah, the windows, let's see how you have the house, check the door for heat, what are we going to meet at? And they would meet at. And they would say, we meet at Hector and Stephanie's house, all right, and who used to be our neighbors? And they'd go to the front lawn and they'd knock on the door and saying, hey, can we use your phone to call 911? Our house is on fire. So that, so three things. On past what you need to do as your plan, I would say three things. To look for Water, shelter and food yeah, at least once a quarter, every three months. Lots of threes here. Practice something, yeah, at least once a quarter every three months lots of threes here.
Megan:Practice something, yeah, and I would argue, also check the expiration dates on your food water et cetera et cetera. I think that one is not of the three but I think once a year somebody you know hosts like a barbecue or something and they will eat any of their about to expire food products and then replace those and you know that makes sure that you know how to cook them, you know that you like them and they're edible to you, things like that. That was my funny bone.
Jimmy:Yeah, that was funny for me, not so funny for you, all right team, so make sure you're prepared for me and not so funny for you, alright team, so make sure you're prepared. Listen to our fire preparedness podcast. Listen to the earthquake preparedness podcast if you want some ideas from us. Readygov, the FEMA's website, helps out with that stuff. Yeah, absolutely, those are great resources. Red Cross is going to have some stuff like that on there and there's just tons and tons of stuff on the interwebs nowadays and the internet and YouTube and wherever you watch videos just like that and find stuff that works best for you and your environment, that's a good one. Yeah, it's cool if you know what these folks are doing out in the wilderness. Awesome. I live in a city. Like what am I gonna do here?
Megan:yeah, and like if you're not comfortable, like you know, doing something on the list, well then, find a replacement, find um or like a different thing. You know, if it's not something you can do, either physically or mentally, figure out some way else to have that goal accomplished, you know.
Jimmy:Sure, sure, all right, you be safe Peace.
