Photo By Petty Officer 1st Class David Hooper | 160221-N-HN991-008 SAN DIEGO (Feb. 21, 2016) –Firefighters with Navy Region...... read more read more
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SAN DIEGO — “If it happens,” (it being any number of natural or man-caused emergencies) “what are you going to do?”
That’s the question that Elena Brooks, a lead assistant with Naval Base Point Loma’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation Department, said she hoped to help people answer when she first came up with the idea last fall of putting together an event to educate military families on how to be ready when disaster strikes.
A few months and countless hours of planning later, Brooks saw her idea come to life as MWR hosted the base’s first ever Emergency Preparedness Street Fair on Saturday.
For Brooks, who credits her passion for emergency preparedness to having a pair of paramedic firefighters in her family, reaching out to the families of Sailors and other service members was a top priority while working to put the fair together.
“I wanted to do this because, while service members are [always] ready to go out and help the world, I wanted a to make sure their families are safe here at home, and that they are getting prepared for any kind of emergency,” said Brooks.
Billed as a “safety first, fun-forward event” the three-hour fair, which took place outside of the base’s newly-renovated recreation center “The Clubhouse,” featured representatives bearing free emergency preparedness materials from various organizations, including the Red Cross, Navy Region Southwest’s fire department and the San Diego Humane Society.
In addition to the various information tables, the fair also featured kids’ activities, food and beverage stations, and an ambulance/fire engine static display that proved extremely popular with the children who had a chance to see the vehicles up close and in person.
“This fair is good because it brings people an awareness of all kinds of [potential emergencies] that might be somewhat unique to military families,” said Capt. David Newcomb, one of a handful of representatives from Navy Region Southwest’s Federal Fire and Emergency Services who was manning the static display while interacting with the public.
“Teaching people how to handle those situations, that’s a good thing,” he added.
Of the many people who attended the fair, Michelle Hamilton, a former Marine who now is actively involved with San Diego’s Community Emergency Response Team program, gave the fair high marks.
“It’s always good to have a plan in place and to be prepared, that way you don’t put a burden on law enforcement,” said Hamilton, who added that she feels events like this one are a good tool to empower people to “be their own first responders” when confronted with an emergency.
Though there is no precise metric to measure how effective the fair may or may not have been in getting people to take charge of their own safety and start planning for the worst, Brooks said that she’d consider the fair she put together a success, so long as it could help people “get the ball rolling” on such a task.
“As long as people are doing that with their families, and if [the fair] helps just one family get ready in case something bad should happen, then that’s important to me.”
| Date Taken: | 02.20.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 02.21.2016 18:42 |
| Story ID: | 189519 |
| Location: | SAN DIEGO , CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 117 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Naval Base Point Loma Fair helps families prep for emergencies, by SCPO Matthew Olay, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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