On the southern and eastern coasts of United States, the constant strong winds of hurricanes Irma, Harvey, and Maria have made Americans rethink and once again realize the importance of emergency preparedness.

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According USA TODAY in an article printed on Sept. 5, 2017, “Irma had maximum sustained winds of 150 mph.”  It was not only that strong stroke of wind that bought America’s awareness to another level, but also the major natural disasters around the world.

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Abby weeks ‘18, an award winning member DECA, recently finished a project on emergency preparedness for King’s.

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“We normally have a false sense of disaster happening on the other side of the country, since we think that a hurricane wouldn’t be happening here, but we never know if an earthquake will happen in the next 5 minutes,” said Weeks.

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Proactive reactions to extreme circumstances would mean researching and preparing for what we would need to do on a daily basis before the west coast experienced an emergency.

Weeks explained that King’s has its own procedures for earthquake and fire drills that students practice on a yearly basis, such as lock and teach where you still teach but locks every way out like windows and doors in the classroom, lock and hide which students and staff going into hiding in designated places in classrooms and around campus, and code red is when an active shooters appears on campus and all students/staff take the following actions: 1.  Run.  2. Hide.  3. Fight, like the earthquake drill we had a week ago. Weeks also suggested in her project that the school start some sort of education for students and make sure that the teachers are prepared enough to direct in case of emergency.