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September is National Preparedness Month,
and this year's observance takes on special significance,
as we remember those who lost their lives 10 years ago on September 11th.
Over the past year, we've introduced the NASA family to the concept of family preparedness.
You've been provided access to resources that will help you develop plans to take care of your family,
and even pets, whenever an emergency arises.
As the program evolves, additional resources will be made available to include topics such as urban survival.
In an effort to reach everyone in the family, a NASA kid's corner is being developed on the family preparedness Web site,
which will be full of downloadable resources and activities for your children to increase their awareness.
Our NASA family has to be prepared for a natural disaster or terrorist attack that could happen at any time or place throughout the country.
Here's Robert Lightfoot to discuss why family preparedness is so important to you at Marshall.
Hi, I'm Robert Lightfoot, Center Director at Marshall Space Flight Center.
Here in north Alabama we have to be ready for tornados, hurricanes, and an occasional winter storm. Last year we experienced all of these.
And what the key is in any of these emergencies is communication. Communication, communication, communication.
We were set to test the Emergency Communication System for the Agency last spring, and we had a wave of tornados come through Huntsville,
devastating the area, taking out a lot of our employees' homes, and leaving people without power for a significant amount of time.
We put the ENS system to test immediately, and, frankly, it worked just fine. We used it to keep in touch with our employees, to locate our employees,
find out if they had damage, talk to our senior management team, any way we could to communicate the reopening and the coming back to the Center.
So it worked out really well for us, but communication is a two-way street, and what we need is, we need for every employee to make sure their information
is up to date in the system. For civil servants that's putting it into the employee express; for contractors, that's idMax. Also, please have a personal plan
at home ready for any emergency that can come along. Our people are our most important resource, and emergency preparedness starts with you guys.
Remember, when it comes to preparedness, it's up to you to make sure everyone in your family knows their stuff. This is a mission at which we cannot afford to fail.