Let's Learn English! Topic: Emergency Preparedness 🕯️🔦📻 (Lesson Only)

Well, hello and welcome to this

English lesson about emergency preparedness.

Now that is a hard thing to say, but that is the

term we use to talk about being ready for an emergency.

It's very important in life to be

prepared in case something goes wrong.

And if you're wondering how did I come up

with this topic, it's because around this time of

year, I put my hat and gloves.

I have a special pair of gloves and

a hat that I keep in my vehicle.

Because winter is coming here, it's important to

be prepared for something to go wrong in

the winter if you drive a vehicle.

So as I was putting my gloves and hat in my

van, I thought I should do a bigger lesson on this.

There are a lot of things you can do to

prepare yourself in case something goes wrong in life.

Maybe you go in the ditch, maybe the power goes out.

There's a variety of things that

you should just be prepared for.

So once again, welcome to this

English lesson on emergency preparedness.

I think you will enjoy it.

A first aid kit.

So a first aid kit is a box.

You can buy a first aid kit that has everything that you

need in it, or you can make your own first aid kit.

Most people buy a first aid kit.

We have a first aid kit in our house.

And mostly it's not just because it's

good to have one as a family.

It's also because we live on a farm.

Now you might be wondering what is in a first aid kit.

Mostly there are bandages.

There are things you can use to wrap

someone's ankle or elbow if they injure themselves.

By the way, bandages, if you cut yourself,

you can put a bandage on the cut.

But usually it's the things you can use to

take care of someone if they hurt themselves.

At school, if we coach a team, when the team goes

to play another team, we take a first aid kit with

just in case one of the athletes hurt themselves.

So this is something that everyone should have

a small first aid kit somewhere in their

house, just in case someone hurts themselves.

You can then help them.

And if it's something more serious, you can at

least do what you can as you help them

get to a doctor or a hospital.

But first aid kit, probably the number one thing

you should have in case of emergency, a flashlight.

So one of the emergencies that is the

most common here, and we just had one

last week, Wednesday would be a power outage.

So when the power goes out in

the summer, it's not a big deal.

But here in Canada, when the power goes out in

the winter, it is a big deal for two reasons.

One, it's cold in the winter and

you need electricity to heat your house.

And two, the days are very, very short right now.

It gets dark at around 05:00

in the afternoon right now.

So a flashlight is a very important thing to have.

It allows you to see in the dark so

that you don't have to stumble around your house.

So the second kind of emergency you

might have is a power outage.

And it's always good to have a flashlight.

Or if you're like me, you have a generator.

We have a generator in case the power goes out.

It's very important because if the power goes out in

the summer, we have flowers in our floral coolers in

the barn, and those flowers need to stay cold.

So if the power goes out, we pull out

the generator, we start the generator and we connect

the air conditioners or the cooling units to the

generator so the flowers stay cold.

And it's also nice because then we can run

a long extension cord to our house, and then

we have a little bit of power in the

house to run our fridge and freezer as well.

So when the power goes out, it

is nice to have a generator.

And yes, if you are learning British English, this is

called a torch, I think, over there across the pond.

That's how we sometimes refer to the UK.

Across the pond.

We call it a flashlight.

It might also be called a torch battery backup.

I have one of these on my computer over there.

When the power goes out, you don't

want your computer to turn off suddenly.

Maybe you're in the middle of typing something, maybe

you're in the middle of sending an email.

And if the computer shuts off

suddenly, you might lose that.

So when you have a computer and you do important work

on that computer, it's nice to have a battery backup.

This will allow your computer to run for maybe

ten minutes, maybe 15 minutes, and then you can

finish what you're doing and turn it off properly.

So, yes, power outages, they are not super common in

Canada, but they are something that I would say three

or four times a year we have a power outage,

so you can take that how you want.

I guess maybe that is common.

They usually last for ten minutes, maybe an hour.

The last power outage lasted for

almost two and a half hours.

That was a little bit.

We were about to pull the generator out, but

then the power came back on road flare.

So I don't use these.

But I have noticed that when truck drivers have

a breakdown, when the truck stops working properly, or

when a truck driver is in an accident, they

will often put flares out on the road to

let people know, especially if it's on a highway.

If there is an accident on the highway, the police

sometimes come and they will put out road flares to

kind of warn people to move over and to not

get involved in an accident that has already happened.

So a normal driver like me or you, we

probably wouldn't have road flares in our vehicle.

But certainly truck drivers in Canada and police officers would

have road flares so that they can light them.

By the way, a road flare is like you

light a road flare and it's on fire.

I don't know exactly how to describe

it, but it is a bright flame.

It's similar to.

What would it be similar to, like a firework that burns for

a very long time with a bright light at the end.

It doesn't explode, obviously, but a road flare

would be used in some sort of car

accident or emergency or breakdown on the road.

And then I do not know anything about these.

These are things you probably would use on a boat.

So let's say you are on a boat out on a

big lake or out on the ocean, and you run out

of gas and it's getting dark and you need someone to

rescue you, and maybe your phone is dead and maybe you

have a little marine radio and it doesn't work eIther.

You might use a flare gun to signal people.

So similar to a road flare, this makes

a very bright light as it burns.

But a flare gun is something you use

to shoot a flare up in the air.

And usually it's red or a different color.

I'm going to guess that the

different colors mean different things.

I don't actually know.

But if I was out on a boat by myself with no

phone, and I needed to be rescued for some reason, maybe if

I saw a boat in the distance, I would shoot the flare

gun into the air and hopefully they would see me and come

and give me a tow or come and rescue me.

Another standard piece of equipment, I would say first

aid kit and fire extinguisher are two things that

everyone should have somewhere on the farm.

We have a number of fire extinguishers.

We have one by our stove in the kitchen.

We have one in the back room of our house.

We have one in the work area in our barn,

and we have another one in the shed where we

keep all of our tractors and other equipment.

Fire extinguishers are your number one defense.

If there is a fire so if you are

in a situation where there is a fire, you

should know where your fire extinguisher is.

And I know this is just an English lesson, but if

you don't own a fire extinguisher, you should get one.

Just get a little fire extinguisher to keep

somewhere in your house, just in case.

It would be so nice if there was suddenly

a little fire and you had a fire extinguisher

and you could quickly put it out.

A very important thing to have, just in case.

And speaking of fires, at the school, I mean,

there's other things you do in case of emergency.

There's things you do for emergency preparedness.

At school, we do what's called a fire drill.

Every year we do a practice fire drill.

I guess its very nature is that it is practice.

But let me explain a little bit.

The fire department requires that we do a

fire drill and they observe us and they

tell us whether we passed or not.

So in order to pass our fire drill, we

practice a week before without the fire department there.

And then the next week we will do

a fire drill with the fire department there.

So every year in the fall, the fire alarm goes off

at the school and we exit in an orderly fashion.

And then the principal makes

sure everyone did it right.

A week later, the fire department will come down, the

fire chief and some other firefighters, and we will have

another fire drill and demonstrate that we know how to

exit the building properly if there is a fire.

So just a good thing to practice at

a school or other large building even.

I think if you work in an office building, you

might not have a fire drill, but you will definitely

have a plan to exit the building if there is

a fire, if there was a big storm coming.

So for us in Canada mostly, that would be in

the winter if there was a big storm coming.

And they know roads are going to be impassable.

So last winter we had a storm like this.

We were home for three days

and we couldn't go anywhere.

Usually they do warn us that

a storm like that is coming.

If you live in a country that has

hurricanes or typhoons or big winter storms, usually

they'll say it could be bad.

In that situation.

Jen and I usually make sure we have enough

water for three or four days or more.

We make sure we have some water in the house and we

make sure that we just have a lot of non perishable food.

So we don't usually buy bottled water, but

in our cupboard we actually have water and

we call it the emergency water.

The emergency water supply.

And then every few months we do drink it

all and then we buy another case of water.

But especially in the winter, it's important that we

make sure we have some water, because even if

you live in the city, there might be a

situation where we don't drink our tap water.

So this is a little more normal for us.

But in the city, you might want to have

some extra water around every once in a while.

And non perishable food is food that

doesn't need to be in the refrigerator.

And it's food that can stay on

the shelf for a very long time.

In fact, in English, we also say that

this Food has a long shelf life.

If you have some soup and tomato sauce and some

canned beans and looks like canned corn over there, this

non perishable food has a very long shelf life.

So it's important.

We almost always have some food like this in our house.

But if we know it's going to be a period of

time where there might be a power outage or we can't

leave, we'll make sure that we have some food like this,

and we'll also have just crackers and other food that you

don't have to heat up to eat.

And then it's good to have a plan.

We have a plan if our fire alarms, if our

smoke detectors go off in our house, we have a

plan for how to get out of the house.

And we have a plan where to meet.

Usually one of our vehicles is parked by the barn.

So if we ever woke up and our house had smoke in it,

Jen and I and the kids know that we need to exit.

And we know that there are two different ways

to exit from our house and that we will

meet by that vehicle parked by the barn.

So it's good to have a plan at work.

You probably have a plan.

If you are at a school, you

probably have a plan for sure.

I see in the chat someone saying toilet paper.

I do not have toilet paper on the list.

You should definitely have enough toilet paper if

there is a bad storm coming as well.

Good point, Vitor.

So this is something that I don't normally have with

me, but I think probably the best scenario I can

think is if you walk in the dark regularly.

So another kind of emergency situation might be

someone tries to mug you or attack you.

I'm not familiar with this because I live way out in

the country, but if I lived in the city and I

knew I was going to be walking at night in an

area where it might be a little bit dangerous.

I think I would have a whistle with me so that

if someone tried to steal my wallet or someone tried to

attack me, I maybe could use the whistle to signal someone.

I'm not an expert on self defense or

preventing someone from attacking you, so don't take

my advice and buy a whistle.

But certainly I do know people who live in areas

where they carry pepper spray, which I think is illegal

in some areas, or also called mace, or they might

have a whistle on them to keep themselves safe.

Now, we don't listen to the radio very often.

We used to a long time ago listen

to the radio, but we don't really anymore.

But we do have one little radio and it takes a battery.

It doesn't have a crank on it like this one.

And we keep that radio because if, let's say, the

power went out for three days and we didn't have

Internet, we wouldn't have any way of knowing what's happening.

So often in the winter, we'll make sure

that our radio has a new battery in

it, especially if a bad storm is coming.

So that if the power went out, we could

at least listen to the news or listen to

the radio to see if there are any announcements.

So always a good idea to have

a radio in case of emergency.

And then of course you should have some batteries.

Thankfully now a lot of things are rechargeable, but it's

always a good idea to have some batteries on hand

for your radio, for your flashlight, and anything else that

you might use if it is an emergency.

It's just handy to be able to replace the

batteries if the batteries go dead in something.

So batteries.

And notice all the words I use there.

Batteries go dead.

You replace the batteries if they go dead.

That's how we talk about batteries in English.

And these are not rechargeable, but you can also

buy rechargeable batteries, which are handy as well.

Charger.

So you want to be able to charge your phone.

So my phone goes about two

days before my phone is dead.

So it's a good idea to be able to charge your phone.

Just checking.

I got an email here. Oh, very cool.

I'm waiting to hear from someone. Nice.

So it's good to have a charger.

You might not have power, but you

might have power in an emergency.

So it would be nice to be able

to charge your devices if they go dead.

And then this one doesn't have a solar panel on it.

You can see this one has a solar panel

on it, but we would call this a battery.

Pack or a phone charger.

I usually just call it a power pack.

Sometimes this is something that you can charge.

And then this one's kind of

nice because it has wireless charging.

So if I put my phone on this, when it's

on, it will charge, but it also has all of

the necessary, let's see here if it will focus.

Probably not.

It also has all of the necessary

ports for charging phones and other devices.

So it's nice to have a battery pack.

I might get one like this someday, but

they're a little bit pricey, so we'll see.

And you might want candles.

Now, the fire department doesn't like it if you use

candles during a power outage, but candles are certainly a

way to have light whenever there's a power outage.

Here in Ontario, every once in a while there's

also a house fire because people use candles and

they accidentally set their house on fire.

So we do use candles as a last resort.

That means that we usually use our rechargeable

flashlights and lamps, but we do keep candles

in the house just in case.

Because if the power was out for three days, and

that has happened before, twice in my time living here,

the power has been out for three or four days.

Usually that happens when we have an ice storm.

So eventually, if everything you own is dead, it's nice

to at least have some candles to safely light.

Use them safely to light your house.

And then of course you should

have a lighter or matches.

A lighter, of course, is something that you flick

and you use it to light your candles. Matches.

You strike a match and then you use

that to light your candles or other things.

But definitely if you have candles, you're going to

want to have a lighter or you're going to

want to have matches, a pack of matches.

And keep these out of reach of children.

So in English we have a phrase, packages

will say, keep out of reach of children.

If you have medicine or painkillers like Advil

or Tylenol or matches, usually there's a warning

that says, keep out of reach of children.

Certainly if you have matches, keep

them out of reach of children.

Kids, if they find matches,

will probably play with them.

If it's a serious emergency, you might want

to take some of your important documents.

If you have to leave, let's say you live in

an area where they say there's going to be flooding.

Maybe there's going to be a tsunami.

If you are quickly leaving, you'll want

to take your important documents with you.

You'll want to make sure that you have things

like your passport, maybe you have a piece of

paper that says you own your house.

But if you have important documents in your house and you

need to evacuate when you are evacuated, it means you need

to leave an area because of a coming emergency.

That rarely happens here, but I know it does happen in

areas closer to the ocean where there might be some kind

of flooding and you might need to evacuate pet food.

So this is kind of an interesting one.

If there's an emergency, your pet needs to eat.

You don't just need food for yourself,

you might need food for your pet.

So I remember my uncle and aunt were camping once, and

they had their dog with them, and there was a tornado.

So a tornado is like a cyclone.

A tornado came through the campground

and they needed to be evacuated.

And then they were happy because someone

brought them some dog food they didn't

remember to take their dog food with.

So even pets during an emergency,

of course, will need food.

So make sure that if there's a big storm

coming, if we know there's a big storm coming,

we make sure we have enough dog food for

Oscar and Walter and then extra clothing.

So this has a number of uses, I guess I would say.

When Jen and I go on a long trip in

the winter, we always bring extra clothing because if the

car or van was to break down or if we

got in an accident, we no longer have heat.

So I mentioned that I keep a

tuke and gloves in the van.

If I'm just driving to school and back.

And if I was to have car problems or

get in a small accident, I probably will find,

like, I know people who live along that road.

I know that I wouldn't be stuck out

in the cold for hours on end.

I could call Jen and she could come and get me.

But when we go to visit Jen's parents, who live a

few hours from here, we make sure we take some winter

clothing, a big winter coat, some extra socks and shoes or

socks and sweaters and winter hats, just in case.

If we were to go in the ditch, slide

into the ditch, or if the car broke down,

then we would have those things ready to go.

Medication.

If you are someone who is on medication, especially

if it is something you must take every day

for your health, you would want to make sure

that if you need to go somewhere in an

emergency, that you take your medication with you.

So this is a good example from the evacuation example.

If you needed to evacuate an area, you would want

to make sure that you took your medication with you.

It wouldn't be good to be in a shelter or to

have to leave an area and then not have your medication.

You would want to make sure you take it

with you and you want to take toiletries.

So I'm not sure if you're

familiar with this term in English.

Toiletries refer to all of the things

you use to care for yourself.

So things like a comb, toothpaste, toothbrush,

shampoo, soap, dental floss, deodorant, mouthwash.

There's a few of these things in this picture.

We call these toiletries.

I'm not sure if this is just a Canadian term, but

for me, I know that if I pack to go somewhere,

and I'm serious, I'm really hoping to go see Brent in

Maine at the end of June or beginning of July.

And if I pack to go see him, I will

pack clothes, but I will also pack by toiletries.

So toothbrush, toothpaste.

I think Brett would appreciate that if I actually, when I

got there, was able to not smell or have bad breath.

Anyways, toiletries are all of those things

that basically you use in the bathroom.

Shaving cream, little shaver or razor.

Those are all toiletries.

Always good to have those in case of emergency, because

sometimes you might have to go for days without showering,

but you can at least brush your teeth and put

on deodorant and smell nice for the people around you.

Gas.

So you might need gas for a generator, you might need

gas just so that you can keep driving your car.

We usually keep two cans of gas almost all the time.

In the summer, we always have gas because

we have lawnmowers and those kinds of things.

But in the winter, we try to make sure we have two

cans of gas so that if the power did go out, we

could at least run the generator for a small period of time.

And you might need gas for your vehicle

or another reason if it is an emergency.

So there's something called a pocket knife.

We also call this a jackknife.

In an emergency, you never know what you

might need to cut or scrape or slice.

You could use this to cut

up carrots to feed your family.

You could use this to make a point on a

stick so that you can roast something over a fire.

So a pocket knife is a handy thing to have.

I do not have a pocket knife.

What I have is a Swiss army knife.

These things are very, very cool.

So if you have one of these,

you know what I'm talking about.

This is almost exactly the Swiss

army knife that I have.

And that's what we call it in Canada.

I think that's probably what

most English speakers call it.

It has a knife, it has a screwdriver, it has

a can opener, it has a scissor, it has scissors.

I think you can sew with it.

It has a little saw, and

it has, of course, a corkscrew.

If you happen to need to open a bottle of wine.

I've never used the corkscrew. Very cool.

I really, really like that tool.

There's another type of tool called a multi

tool, which is similar but has pliers.

But if you don't have a Swiss army knife,

if you're looking for gift ideas for Christmas, if

you celebrate Christmas, buy someone a Swiss army knife.

I'm sure they'll love it.

Very handy thing to have.

It's good to have a can opener.

If you have a whole bunch of non perishable food

in cans and the power is out and you are

somewhere and you don't have a can opener, you can't

eat the food, it's stuck in the cans.

So having a can opener is

certainly a handy thing to have.

You can open the canned food and you can eat it.

So definitely good idea to have

a can opener and then entertainment.

One of the things we notice, because the most

common emergency here would be a power outage, one

of the things we notice is that you can't

do the things you normally do.

You can't work on your computer, I can't make videos.

Jen, she can work outside still if it's summer, but

when work is done, you need some form of entertainment.

So it's good to have a book, a

deck of cards, maybe some different board games.

It's good to have things for entertainment because you might

have to go a long period of time where you

can't watch TV or you can't use the Internet.

So definitely a good idea to have

some form of entertainment ready to go.

And then you might want to have some cash.

One of the things we noticed during the last

power outage was that the one restaurant had power,

but they weren't able to do electronic transactions.

So you couldn't pay with your phone or bank card or Visa

card, but they took cash, so we were able to go get

pizza even though there was a power outage at our house.

So it's always a good idea to

have a little bit of cash.

I don't think I have any cash in my wallet right now.

Do I have any cash in my wallet?

Oh, yes.

$5.

So this is not a lot of money, but

at least I have some money in my wallet,

but generally 1020, maybe $30 cash or more.

It's a good idea to always have a little bit

of cash somewhere, just in case you need it.

I don't think you need this, but when I was done

making my slides, when I make the lessons, when I'm done

coming up with all my own ideas, then I use the

Internet to see if there's anything I missed.

And they said, you should have a compass.

I don't have a compass.

I think GPS on phones has kind of replaced that. Right?

But maybe if you live somewhere, like in the northern part

of Finland or something, maybe it would be a good idea

to have a compass just in case, but I don't.

By the way, a compass

will point towards magnetic north.

So magnetic north is slightly off from true

north, but it will give you a good

idea of which direction is north.

And then you might know which direction to walk to get

home or find the nearest city, et cetera, et cetera.

Maybe I should get a compass.

Maybe this is a good Christmas gift idea as well.

I don't know why you need rope, but they

said if you're preparing, you should have rope.

And then I thought to myself, maybe

you need rope to help someone.

Maybe the emergency situation is someone needs

to be rescued when they're climbing.

Maybe you need rope to pull a car out of a ditch.

But a rope might be a handy thing to have.

I didn't think of this one because we just have

rope on the farm for a variety of reasons.

So there's always rope somewhere.

And the list said you should have an axe.

Maybe you live somewhere where there's lots of trees

and in order to heat your house, you need

to go out and chop some firewood.

It might be handy to have an axe in order to do that.

It might be a good idea to have an axe and

maybe a saw to be able to cut up wood to

use in a fireplace or in a wood stove to keep

your house warm during a power outage or other emergency.

And then it's always good to have some blankets.

We also keep a few blankets in our car in

the winter, if we're going on a long trip, we

keep a couple of blankets in the back of the

van again, just in case we're somewhere cold and our

van stops working or we're in an accident.

It's always good to have your hat, your gloves.

We call it a tuke, by the way, the hat, blankets.

If you go on a long trip in the

winter, Brent's probably familiar with this as well.

It's just good to be prepared in those situations.

Peace.