Community Preparedness Education (CPE)

The presentation is called Community Preparedness Education (CPE) and it is an informal discussion of disaster preparedness for our community. We talk about potential disasters that could strike here and how to get prepared for some of them. This includes a discussion of actual items to have on hand, but also some of the plans or protocols we could put in place beforehand to make the immediate aftermath unfold more smoothly and with less anxiety. We also talk about where to get real-time information during a disaster and where in this community to get some training now so that we can help ourselves and neighbors in the event of some kind of disaster in the future.  

My name is Prentiss Andrews and I am the Disaster Preparedness Coordinator here in the Bellingham office for the American Red Cross. My job is to work with community organisations to promote preparedness and resiliency in the face of potential disasters and emergencies. I am a recent transplant to the Bellingham area (since 2012). I am originally from Kitsap County. I moved here to complete my degree at Western in geology. Before going back to school my first career was in energy development. I worked for six years for a Seattle based energy development company, prospecting for and building utility scale wind energy plants around the Western United States.