Emergency Preparedness (pre-2018) Merit Badge (Boy Scouts)

• 1: Earn the First Aid merit badge.
• 2: Do the following:
  1. Discuss with your counselor the aspects of emergency preparedness:
     1. Prepare for emergency situations
     2. Respond to emergency situations
     3. Recover from emergency situations
     4. Prevent emergency situations
     5. Mitigate losses in emergency situations

     Include in your discussion the kinds of questions that are important to ask yourself as you consider each of these.

  2. Make a chart that demonstrates your understanding of each of the three aspects of emergency preparedness in requirement 2a (prepare, respond, recover, prevent and mitigate) with regard to 10 of the situations listed below. You must use situations 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 below in boldface, but may choose any other five for a total of 10 situations. Discuss this chart with your counselor.
     1. Home kitchen fire
     2. Home basement/storage room/garage fire
     3. Explosion in the home
     4. Automobile accident
     5. Food-borne disease (food poisoning)
     6. Fire or explosion in a public place
     7. Vehicle stalled in the desert
     8. Vehicle trapped in a blizzard
     9. Flash flooding in town or the country
     10. Mountain/backcountry accident
     11. Boating accident
     12. Gas leak in a building
     13. Tornado or hurricane
     14. Major flood
     15. Toxic chemical spills and releases
     16. Nuclear power plant emergency
     17. Avalanche (snowslide or rockslide)
     18. Violence in a public place
  3. Meet with and teach your family how to recognize, prevent, and react to the situations on the chart you created for requirement 2b. Then meet with your counselor and report on your family meeting, discussing their responses.
• 3: Show how you could safely save a person from the following:
  1. Touching a live electric wire
  2. A structure filled with carbon monoxide
  3. Clothes on fire
  4. Drowning using nonswimming rescues (including accidents on ice)
• 4: Show three ways of attracting and communicating with rescue planes/aircraft.
• 5: With another person, show a good way to transport an injured person out of a remote and/or rugged area, conserving the energy of rescuers while ensuring the well-being and protection of the injured person.
• 6: Do the following:
  1. Describe the National Incident Management System (NIMS)/Incident Command System (ICS)
  2. Identify the local government or community agencies that normally handle and prepare for emergency services similar to those of the NIMS or ICS. Explain to your counselor
     1. How the NIMS/ICS can assist a Boy Scout troop when responding in a disaster
     2. How a group of Scouts could volunteer to help in the event of these types of emergencies.
  3. Find out who is your community's emergency management director and learn what this person does to prepare for, respond to, recover from, prevent, and mitigate emergency situations in your community. Discuss this information with your counselor and apply what you discover to the chart you created for requirement 2b.
• 7: Do the following:
  1. Take part in an emergency service project, either a real one or a practice drill, with a Scouting unit or a community agency.
  2. Prepare a written plan for mobilizing your troop when needed to do emergency service. If there is already a plan, explain it. Tell your part in making it work.
• 8: Do the following:
  1. Tell the things a group of Scouts should be prepared to do, the training they need , and the safety precautions they should take for the following emergency services:
     1. Crowd and traffic control
     2. Messenger service and communication.
     3. Collection and distribution services.
     4. Group feeding, shelter, and sanitation.
  2. Prepare a personal emergency service pack for a mobilization call. Prepare a family kit (suitcase or waterproof box) for use by your family in case an emergency evacuation is needed. Explain the needs and uses of the contents.
• 9: Do ONE of the following:
  1. Using a safety checklist approved by your counselor, inspect your home for potential hazards. Explain the hazards you find and how they can be corrected.
  2. Review or develop a plan of escape for your family in case of fire in your home.
  3. Develop an accident prevention program for five family activities outside the home (such as taking a picnic or seeing a movie) that includes an analysis of possible hazards, a proposed plan to correct those hazards, and the reasons for the corrections you propose.