{"id":418445,"date":"2026-08-27T18:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T18:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/418445\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T18:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T18:36:07","slug":"richardson-to-promote-emergency-prep-during-national-preparedness-month-richardson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/418445\/","title":{"rendered":"Richardson to promote emergency prep during National Preparedness Month | Richardson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Richardson officials are preparing to ramp up emergency preparedness initiatives in September as part of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ready.gov\/september\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">National Preparedness Month<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Director of emergency management Alisha Gimbel presented information on the city\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cor.net\/departments\/emergency-management\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">initiatives<\/a> and public outreach to City Council <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cor.net\/home\/showpublisheddocument\/46769\/639214604810870000\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aug. 10<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to encourage some action, some leaning forward to create resilience in our community,\u201d Gimbel said. \u201cThat\u2019s our goal every National Preparedness Month.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The overview<\/p>\n<p>City Manager Don Magner said the month is an opportunity for the city to raise awareness about how individuals and the community can get prepared for \u201cthe next inevitable response that we\u2019ll need to coordinate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The city is planning a public outreach push during September to inform residents about what they can do in their homes and businesses to be prepared for emergencies, Gimbel said.<\/p>\n<p>She highlighted the importance of residents <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cor.net\/departments\/emergency-management\/ready-richardson\/be-informed\/public-warnings-and-notifications\/emergency-notification-system\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">signing up for alerts<\/a> from the city for weather events and other emergencies.<\/p>\n<p>Residents shouldn\u2019t rely on outdoor warning sirens for emergencies, Mayor pro tem Ken Hutchenrider said, as these are not designed to be heard in homes.<\/p>\n<p>A closer look<\/p>\n<p>Gimbel said the city will be spreading information on how to build an emergency kit that would provide supplies for at least 72 hours. Recommended items include:<\/p>\n<p>WaterFoodFlashlightsFirst aid kitWhistleDust maskCell phone chargersPersonal sanitation itemsHand toolsTowels<\/p>\n<p>Richardson also developed a preparedness passport, available through the Richardson Public Library, that lists activities and tasks centered around personal, family and community preparedness. In the past two years, Gimbel said the city has distributed roughly 5,500 passports.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe really do like to start this from the ground up and to build that culture within our community,\u201d Gimbel said.<\/p>\n<p>Gimbel said city staff regularly hand out household preparedness bags at Richardson community events that include checklists, a first aid kit and an emergency blanket. These bags are intended to provide a starting point for putting together an emergency kit, she said. In the past year, the city has handed out over 2,000 bags at 33 events, Gimbel said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just want to encourage folks to take those steps [and] build a kit of emergency supplies on a nice, calm day,\u201d Gimbel said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richardson officials are preparing to ramp up emergency preparedness initiatives in September as part of National Preparedness Month.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[38677,4519,96516,160,162,161,959,38687,172],"class_list":["post-418445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-alerts","tag-city-council","tag-emergency-preparedness","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news","tag-richardson","tag-warnings","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}