In Times of Danger....

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With danger coming home to roost in so many places, we have created significant awareness among people on the need to write wills to let their loved ones know what to do with their assets, and to head off family fights. But have we thought of personal contingency plans? One in which you can conscript your neighbours/ friends?

I think it has become a necessity, and in the coming few weeks, I shall devote more thinking to it. A Sidhu-ism applies aptly here: Better to prevent and prepare than to repent and repair!

Some stray ideas: 
1. We can use a Google SMS channel to prepare a list of all residents of a building to be subscribers. This way, we can use the facility to communicate with everyone living in the building instantaneously by a single SMS: invaluable in times of danger. The channel owner could be the security head on duty. If, say, every building in your locality/ complex set up such a channel, then it would be a small matter to make another channel to alert all the channel owners of each building - the modern equivalent of jungle drums! This could also be the means to circulate notices of meetings, and even to wish residents for birthdays and anniversaries, but mainly to alert residents to things like water supply shortage, electricity cuts, lifts not working, traffic rules in the area, notices of meetings, etc - all by a single SMS ! In times of bigger danger at locality or city level, often phone lines are choked, but sms's go through. So this could be a boon!

2.   In case one cannot communicate with or reach one's loved ones, knowing that all will be following a pre-agreed contingency plan can be an immense source of relief. It will be especially useful to train children beforehand in what to do, in case they cannot reach home from school, or they cannot enter the home on their return from school.

3. It may help if the security head always has a long length of strong nylon rope, a flash light, a tall step ladder, and first-aid kit on hand; and every security personnel and building resident knows where they are available.

4. Any more ideas?...