What does DOTT want now?

Behold DOTT with her snazzy purple cellphone. Good thing she has unlimited nights and weekends to call her boyfriend R2D2! DOTT no longer has a landline phone, she's a busy robot on the go, who needs it?! She still wants to receive emergency information and alerts from the Department of Emergency Management. What's a robot to do?

Simple! Your Do One Thing Today is actually two things. If it's too much to handle, pace yourself and break it into two days. First, register your cell phone with the Emergency Community Notification System (ECNS). Landlines are already in the system, but VOIP and cellphones are not. To register your cellphone, look for the Alert Cowlitz County icon on the righthand side of the blog. You may have to scroll down. See it? Click it, follow the directions and go from there.

See, that wasn't so hard. Next, sign up to get emergency texts. You don't have to have a fancy cellphone to get these emergency texts, any cellphone with text capabilities can do it. All you have to do is text the words Follow CowlitzDEM to the number 40404 and you will get any emergency alerts from our Twitter feed. After you sign up, you will get a return text that says something about Twitter, just delete it, you don't have to join Twitter to get our alerts. You won't be inundated with texts, we only use this account for important information. Should you tire of receiving emergency alerts, simply text Unfollow Cowlitz DEM to 40404 and it will remove you.

If you have questions about either of these alerts, please email us at DEM@co.cowlitz.wa.us or give us a call at 577-3130, we're happy to help!

Ring Ring....DOTT Calling

Here's DOTT with her corded phone. Your Do One Thing Today is to respect the power of the corded phone. I know, I know, phones with cords are not flashy, or cool, or convenient. However, during a power failure, your cordless phones will not work, but an old-fashioned corded phone will (unless the lines are down, then you're out of luck).

You might be thinking that you can just use your cell phone if the power the goes out, and of course, you can do that...until it dies and needs to be charged....and then what? You might also be thinking that you can charge your cell phone using your car charger. Which is fine too, unless it only charges when the car is on, like mine. Then you have to waste gas idling in your driveway while your phone charges. You might also be thinking about Peanut Butter M&M's. Or maybe that's just me?

So, why not just think retro and pick yourself up a corded phone. If you have a hard time finding one in stores, you might want to peruse a thrift store or garage sale. If all else fails, try Amazon.com!

If you don't want to use the corded phone on a regular basis, you can store it with your other emergency supplies. When the power goes out, you'll be glad you did!

DOTT says....

DOTT the robot is a smart machine. Today she encourages you to find an old, but sturdy pair of shoes that you no longer wear and put them under your bed. Why? Don't question DOTT!

One of the most common injuries following an earthquake are cuts from broken glass, especially cuts on the feet. Luckily, this is pretty easy to mitigate. Of course, I cannot guarantee that an earthquake will occur while you're sleeping in bed, but on the off chance that it did happen at that time, wouldn't it be nice to slip on shoes and not worry about filleting your feet while you're running around checking on family and pets? It would.

If you have no windows, glass cabinets or TV's in your bedroom, you may not have to worry about this at all. But if you have any or all, you might want to throw those ugly, ratty tennis shoes under your bed where they can no longer assault the eyes of passersby.

So, your Do One Thing Today, doesn't require money or much effort at all. Hooray for easy fixes!

DOTT Says...

This is DOTT. DOTT stands for Do One Thing Today. Every week or so DOTT will ask you to do one thing to get yourself prepared for emergencies, large and small. Unlike other robots, DOTT is not a power-hungry maniac bent on overthrowing civilization or attacking the elderly, nor is she snarky and sarcastic like Rosie from the Jetsons.

She just politely suggests that you do a couple things every now and then, so you are in a better position to help yourself and others following a disaster. However, if you don't heed DOTT's advice, she will remember and when the robot revolution begins, will not put in a kind word for you with her overlords.

Anyway, so what does DOTT want you to do today? Get yourself a battery-operated emergency radio. Any radio will do, so long as it has battery backup (and batteries) for when the power is out. The radio pictured is only a handcrank powered one (which is better as a last resort) it also has a flashlight and cell phone charger. The reason I advocate having a battery-operated radio, as opposed to a handcrank radio is this: 1 minute of cranking gets you 30 minutes of flashlight and 10 minutes of radio, 3 minutes of cranking gets you less than 8 minutes of cell phone. That's fine in a dire emergency, but I just sat here and cranked the thing for a minute and I'm exhausted. Just food for thought.

Radios and batteries are pretty reasonably priced. If a radio is the only way that you are able to obtain emergency information and instructions, they can be priceless!