Mission Statement
The mission of RUPrepared.com is to minimize the impact of disasters by helping individuals be prepared, aware, and knowledgeable, and to empower people to aid others who have suffered a disaster.
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgment must be made for the hard work from the people of the Franktown Colorado Emergency Preparedness Group who originally conceived the guide. Fire Chief Lee Willis, Rick & Debbie Gurley and Leo & Cindy Brown started the group. Along with other members of this group, they created an initial plan.
Myles Communications first published 40,000 copies of the guide for distribution to every household in Douglas County, Colorado.
They chose to enlarge the scope of the work and publish it on the internet so it would be available to communities nationwide.
So the initial Franktown, Colorado Plan was the basis for the current RuPrepared Emergency Preparedness Guide.
We hope it truly makes a difference to the people of the nation in future emergencies. As a result, a prepared citizenry will be able to support themselves and each other (as well as their governmental bodies and business communities) by being a part of the solution.
We all need each other: individuals need business and government, business needs individuals and government, and government needs individuals and business.
About RUPrepared.com
Myles Communications has been involved with disaster preparedness since 1999.
Myles Communications published community newspapers in Douglas County, Colorado for nine years. Whether in small towns or larger cities, the community newspaper is 'Information Central'. Readers look to the newspaper not only for news, but also for information about the community.
Douglas County was on the Colorado's front range and over the years experienced disasters ranging from devastating floods to roaring wildfires.
In the early '70s the population was about 25,000, so the potential damage from disasters was minimal. In the late '80s and early '90s the county began to experience unprecedented growth (presently the population is in excess of 250,000).
With this growth the potential for devastation increased exponentially.
However, it was not a natural disaster that first moved the county toward disaster preparedness. It was Y2K! The Y2K scare came about because of a computer programming anomaly involving the date 2000, that allegedly threatened everything from banks to healthcare. Y2K turned out to be the biggest nonevent of the century. All of the predictions for disaster vanished at midnight January 1, 2000 when nothing happened. Nothing happened because the nation was prepared. They took action to stop the threat. They were prepared.
A small group of dedicated individuals at the volunteer fire department in Franktown, Colorado set out to address the potential Y2K disaster. They had the foresight to expand their efforts to include all types of disaster that their small community might face.
Myles Communications became involved when the newspaper staff recognized the need to publish and distribute the guide to every household in the county. With the cooperation of the Douglas County Commissioners and local advertisers the distribution goal was reached.
In 2001 they purchased MyWebPal.com and sold the newspapers to concentrate on developing their new company.
In 2003, Myles Communications publisher, Jim Myles, was elected as presiding commissioner in Randolph County, Missouri. Myles quickly learned that disaster planning was an important part of his new job. He partcipated in numerous training seminars and was certified in FEMA's National Incident Management System (NIMS).
On March 12, 2006 a tornado struck rural Randolph County destroying homes and killing four people. Myles quickly learned first hand the importance of disaster preparedness. He worked for days assisting other local agencies in the recovery effort. When asked about the effectiveness of state and local government's response to the catastrophic event, Myles said, "The government and first responders performed admirably. We also learned where we must improve. The most important area for improvement is individual preparedness. From Katrina to Randolph County it was obvious that individual preparedness could make a huge difference in loss of life and recovery."
The staff of Myles Communications and MyWebPal.com believe their experience can make a difference. Over a year ago they began to pull together the very best disaster preparedness information they could find and to make it available to readers in an easy to access format.
The result is RuPrepared.com
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