“Got Preps?” is a simple question that functions on many different levels to promote preparedness for individuals and communities.  It is a campaign that encourages people to look at a problem and find easily attainable solutions.  Just as we start to build a house we must first lay a strong foundation to build from.  Therefore, starting a campaign that asks the question, “Got Preps?” leads individuals down a path that will spread to their community and hopefully the entire nation.

“Got Preps” can be seen on bumper stickers, the newspapers, and / or through a website.  Local fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances have stickers asking, “Got Preps?”  A hurricane is heading for your town.  Got Preps?  An unexpected blizzard is heading your way.  Got Preps?  A massive storm has taken out power and flooded your town.  Got Preps?   

To break down the campaign let us look at how “Got Preps?” can be perceived starting with the individual household:

1.      What are ‘preps’?  Preps or preparations are steps we can all make to help our selves, families, and neighbors to prepare for the unexpected.  Whether it is a small localized event with a small impact or a larger event with a high impact we can find many similarities in the solutions to help ourselves and others get through it. 

2.      How do I ‘prep’?  By simply storing extra food, water, basic medical supplies, and other comforts we can help to see ourselves and our families through disasters that have disabled the basic necessities we are accustomed to.  What happens when you can not find food in the grocery store?  What happens when you turn on the faucet and no water comes out?  What happens when there is no power, when the phones are out, when emergency services are tied up dealing injured, sick, or responding to the emergency?  By preparing basic necessities you can increase your comfort and helpfulness during a disaster.  You can go from being someone in need to someone that can help others make it through the disaster. 

3.      Who should ‘prep’?  Everyone.  If we look at what happens during a disaster you can see that all emergency resources (like the fire department, police, and hospitals) become overwhelmed with injured, sick, and other victims.  If you and your family make basic preps you can lighten the load on these services and help your community make a strong and quick comeback.  The more people that are prepared the quicker emergency resources can deal directly with the problem and have less work dealing with the secondary consequences of the problem. 

4.      Why should I ‘prep’?  We should all make plans to have better preparations in place so that we can have more assurance we can make it through disasters.  We buy car, home, and health insurance as a means to deal with unexpected accidents and disasters.  Having basic preps are a form of insurance that we can make it through a disaster more comfortably.  Additionally we enable ourselves to be able to help those who are in immediate need of assistance.  Consequently, you will find that your preparations go a long way towards helping your community recover quickly from a disaster. 

5.      When should I ‘prep’?  This month.  On your next trip to the grocery store take a look at what foods store the longest.  Look at large containers of water.  You don’t have to start big.  Buy a few extra items here and there.  Plan to have at least 72 hours of food and water for each person in your house.  Look at basic medical supplies.  What would you need in an emergency?  Purchase a little each time you go to the store or buy it all at once.  You can start making simple plans right away. 

Now let us look at how this spreads to the community level.  Simply put a prepared community from household to household goes a long way towards speeding up the process of recovering from a disaster.  Furthermore, individuals who are preparing in their own household will start to look to the community.  We can ask the question ‘Got Preps’ to each community out there in America.  How has my town prepared for unexpected disasters?  What emergency response is present?  Are their organizations like CERT that I could participate in?  If applied effectively a “Got Preps?” campaign could easily help individuals continue to find ways they can participate in emergency preparedness for their families, their community, and the nation as a whole.  So now you should be asking yourself this very important question, “Got Preps?”