Colorado Safety Educators: Safety And Self-Defense Speaker Learns How To Shut Off The Gas Going To Her Home.

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Colorado Safety Educators’ personal safety and self-defense trainer, Barbara Scott, is continuing to document her own personal emergency preparedness and disaster plan progress.

Today is Friday, 10 April 2009.

Yesterday, another tornado hit the Arkansas town of Mena.  Two people were killed and more than 100 homes were damaged. 

What if this was your town?  Or my town? 

My husband has been teaching me yet another life lesson called, “How to shut the gas off going to our home.”  Not only did I not know how to shut it off, I didn’t even know where the gas main and shut-off valve was!

One of my goals in documenting my journey from not being prepared as a family for emergencies, to being prepared, is by exposing my omissions to the world, that you, my readers, might start thinking about a plan and begin to take your own action as well. 

I must make a disclaimer here.

This plan is for the Barbara Scott family.  You will need to adapt my ideas to fit you and yours.  How my home was designed and built, the gas and water lines, and the electrical set-up, will be different from how your home or apartment is designed.  I asked my husband to show me where things are and how to turn them off.  I recommend that you ask family members, neighbors, property managers, or even the utility companies, to come and show you where emergency shut-offs are and how to shut them off in case of an emergency, if you do not know.

I am blessed to have a very handy husband.  I also now realize that if my husband is not at home when an emergency might strike, I have to be handy as well…

Five Star Seminars has recently created an important survey.  It is called, “Do You Have A Personal Emergency Preparedness Disaster Plan?”

You know what?

Most of the people surveyed ( thus far) do not have a plan.  A good friend of mine recently told me that he and his family do not even have a “Meet at the Mailbox and Count Noses Plan”, should there be a fire. 

To quote Benjamin Franklin.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

The following pictures are worth more than an “ounce” to me.   My husband is showing me and all of you what we are looking for.  Jon is using a gas shut-off wrench.  You could also use a pipe wrench or pliers.  The key is that whatever tool you select needs to be readily available if you need to shut off your gas at the gas valve. 

I am rethinking where I will keep my gas shut-off wrench…Some suggest attaching the wrench to the meter or to the wall behind the meter. 

In the event of a disaster, we may be instructed to shut off the utility service to our homes.

CAUTION - If we turn off the gas for any reason, a qualified professional must turn it back on. 

NEVER should we attempt to turn the gas back on ourselves.

In these pictures, my husband is pointing to the “lock bar”.  This lock bar is in line with the pipe and the gas is flowing properly.  The shut-off valve runs parallel with the pipe.  In case of emergency, we would be taking our wrench and turning the valve a 1/4 turn, until the valve is crosswise to the pipe.

The last two pictures show how Jon would use the gas shut-off wrench to turn off our gas.  Remember that you need to find the specific guidance for proper shut-off procedures for your meter, as we all have different gas meter configurations.

 Five Star Seminars  and Colorado Safety Educators have sponsored very successful safety and self-defense seminars over the years. 

I believe that as we expand into the personal emergency preparedness and disaster planning seminar arena, great good will come from these as well.  As our survey is showing us, interest is there for families to make emergency plans.  I think, we are just so busy that we sometimes forget that there were reasons for the old adages. 

As the Bible says, “If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear.”

I hope this helps!

To life!

Barbara Scott

About the Author:

Barbara Scott is a Denver, Colorado area based safety, self-defense, and emergency preparedness speaker, trainer, and author.  She is the CEO and Founder of Five Star Seminars and Colorado Safety Educators.  Her popular personal safety and self-defense seminars and training classes, address personal self-defense strategies, behavioral safety, as well as situational safety and security. 

Barbara writes awareness articles about safety, as well as business, and marketing strategies. 

Five Star Seminars and Boulder, Colorado’s OX & CO are major sponsors and promoters for Colorado Safety Educators’ safety seminars for men, women, and children throughout Colorado.  For information about how to book Barbara Scott and her Team at Colorado Safety Educators for personal safety training seminars in Colorado, go to:  http://www.coloradosafetyeducators.org/booknow.htm

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