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Office of Emergency Management
Teaching Children How and When to Call 9-1-1
Teaching Children How And When To Call
Teaching your child how to use 9-1-1 in an emergency could be one of the simplest and most important lessons you’ll ever share. Role-playing is a great way to address various emergency scenarios and give your child the confidence he or she will need to handle them. For younger children, it might also help to talk about who emergency workers are and what kinds of things they do.
Don’t forget: learning what an emergency is goes hand in hand with learning what isn’t. Still, teach your child that if ever in doubt, and there’s no adult around, always make the call. It’s much better to be safe than sorry.
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How to Use 9-1-1
Although most 9-1-1 calls are now traced, it’s still important for your child to have your street address and phone number memorized (write down your phone number, address and basic directions to your house and keep the information next to every phone in the house just in case). Walk him or her through some of the questions the operator will ask, including:
- Where are you calling from? (Where do you live?)
- What type of emergency is this?
- Who needs help?
- Is the person awake and breathing?
Explain to your child that it’s OK to be frightened in an emergency, but that it’s important to stay calm, speak slowly and give as much detail to the operator as possible. If your child is old enough to understand, also explain that the emergency dispatcher may give first-aid instructions before emergency workers arrive at the scene. Make it clear that your child should not hang up until the person on the other end says it’s OK.
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More Safety Tips
- Explain the importance of pressing the one-key twice instead of looking for a
non-existent 11-key.
- Educate children on the difference between calling 9-1-1 and 9/11 (September 11, 2001).
- Make sure your child understands that calling 9-1-1 as a joke is a crime in many places.
- Make sure your house number is clearly visible from the street so that police, fire, or ambulance workers can easily locate your address.
- If you live in an apartment building, make sure your child knows the apartment number and floor you live on.
- If you have an elderly grandparent or a person with a medical condition living in your home, discuss specific emergencies that could occur and how to spot them.
- Keep a first-aid kit handy and make sure your child and babysitters know where to find it. When your child is old enough, teach him or her basic first aid.
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Special Needs Assistance Program:
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Faith Hope Partnership Conference Resources:
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KnoWhat2Do When Severe Weather Strikes!
 Severe Weather Seasons is upon North Texas once again, and while spring weather is beautiful, the threat of severe weather and tornadoes is also very real. You can take several basic steps if you KnoWhat2do to protect your family and your home from disaster. Being prepared for severe weather is the best defense to protect yourself and your family. It is what you do before storms strike which can make the difference between life and death during a severe storm!
General
- Become familiar with Richardson’s severe weather warning system and make certain every adult and teenager in your family knows what to do when a tornado “watch” or “warning” is issued.
- Learn about your workplace’s disaster safety plans and similar measures at your children’s schools or day care centers.
- Create a family disaster plan. Click here to create your pocket family plan now!
- Put together an emergency supply kit. Click here for a kit checklist
If you are inside when severe weather strikes:
- Avoid contact with corded phones, electrical equipment and plumbing. These can all conduct electricity.
- For indoor weather warning, purchase a NOAA Weather Radio with SAME (Specific Area Message Encoder) Technology and program it for your area.
- Designate a tornado safe room (either install an underground shelter or use an internal room, closet, bathroom etc. that you can use if there is a tornado warning for your area).
- Stay away from windows, doors and concrete items.
If your are outside when severe weather strikes:
- Seek shelter when you first discover severe weather is imminent.
- Get inside a completely enclosed building immediately if one is accessible.
- Get out of water and avoid metal. They both can carry an electrical current.
- Avoid leaning against vehicles. Get off bicycles and motorcycles.
- If you're in a group of people, spread out.
What if the Power Goes Out
- Contact Oncor to report your address as an outage.
- Be sure batteries, flashlights and battery-powered radios are accessible, just in case the power goes out. In the case of extended power outages, some people find wind up flashlights and radios useful. It may also help to place reflective tape on flashlights so they can be found in the dark.
- Keep refrigerator and freezer doors shut. Frozen foods will keep about 24 hours. If in doubt, throw it out.
- Leave your porch light switched on, as well as one light inside your home, so you and repair crews will know when service has been restored.
- Turn down your thermostat and turn off the other lights. This will help reduce initial demand for electricity when power is restored. If that demand is too great, the system will overload and cause the power to go off again.
- Turn off and unplug other electrical equipment, including VCRs, computers, televisions, stereos and microwave ovens. It will protect your equipment in case there is a change in voltage as the power comes back on. It’s also a good idea to use a surge suppresser to protect your valuable electrical equipment and appliances. Don’t confuse a power strip with a surge protector—good surge protectors (also known as transitory volt suppressors) cost $35 or more, and will protect your electronics from surges that follow any sort of power disturbance.
- If after your power is restored you experience a subsequent power outage, call the emergency number on your electricity bill to ensure the power company is aware of the new outage. Especially during widespread power outages, the company may believe power is restored in your area when in fact a few residents may still be experiencing outages.
- Make sure the emergency number for your power company is easily accessible and/or recorded in your emergency communications plan.
Click here for a short flood safety video
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Emergency Management System
A system of organized analysis, planning, decision-making and assignment of resources to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from the effect of all hazards that affect our community.
Principal Objectives
It is the responsibility of the city of Richardson Emergency Management office to preserve, maintain, and/or reconstitute civic government ability to carry out the executive, legislative, and judicial process under the threat of occurrence of any emergency or major disaster that could disrupt normal daily operations.
Its primary day-to-day operation is to identify and to mitigate the effects of natural, technological, environmental emergencies in so far as possible by means of preparing for and responding and recovering from their effects on the community.
Goals of Emergency Management
To ensure the continuity of Government, to coordinate emergency preparedness efforts, to establish, coordinate, and manage the emergency operations center, manage effective and efficient recovery efforts of government, and maintain contact with the citizens its serves.
Regional Public Education Program
In case of emergency, KnoWhat2Do! We face many potential hazards here in North Central Texas, and there are many skilled and caring emergency professionals ready to help if and when disaster strikes. But you are your own best protection. The KnoWhat2Do Web site, developed through the collaboration of our North Central Texas regional governments, will teach you how to Think, Prepare and Act to protect your personal safety and the safety of those around you.
Emergency Management Links
Click to learn about FEMA study courses
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