Last month was FEMA’s 8th Annual Emergency Preparedness Month, and this Emergency Preparedness “preacher” posted seven articles related to this annual campaign to help citizens to be better prepared and ready to cople with a major disaster like an earthquake. If you go to the right and click on September 2011, the following blog titles appear …

EP#75- Is the End Near? (9-2-11)
EP#76- Emergency Preparedness Month-2011 (9-4-11)
EP#77- Repeat-Repeat-Repeat (9-7-11)
EP#78- The American Red Cross (9-10-11)
EP#79- Are You Ready? Part II (9-12-11)
EP#80- It Takes Just 3 Steps to get Ready (9-15-11)
EP#81- How Great is Your Shake? (9-18-11)

Today’s heading, “OK EP Preacher, So What?” is appropriate. What “good” if any, did all this preaching, as a blogger, accomplish? Not one reader shared their “Readiness Quotient” (RQ test score), blog #79, with me.

On October 4, 2011, a Ready.gov press release thanked the 8,551 National Preparedness Coalition Members (who registered with FEMA) for their “time and energy educating others about emergency preparedness.” They estimated that approximately three million individuals were informed at thousands of events and activities across the country, ranging from seminars to fairs, to community outreach events, workshops, webinars, and trainings.

OK, that’s the good news! It’s better than nothing happening; but, wait … there is another important date on our calendar for local residents interested in emergency preparedness.

Thursday, October 22 – “The Great California ShakeOut” will take place. 2011 is the third year “statewide” drill, “designed to educate the public about how to protect themselves during a large earthquake, and how to get prepared. It will be the largest earthquake drill to ever take place in the United States.

For more information about the “Past, Present, and Future” of the Great ShakeOut, go to http://www.greatshakout.org/history/