Our team of preparedness professionals has been monitoring current disasters for the last five years and here is a list of common disasters that occur during the month of May:

• Flood disasters
• Pandemic disasters.
• Tornado disasters.
• Wildfires disasters.

So, what are we talking about when we mention these general disaster categories?  Let's get more specific about these categories:

Flood disasters include situations such as:

• Death toll surpasses 1,500 after flooding.
• Major floods displace nearly 250,000 people.
• Southern states pummeled as rain, wind, flooding continue.
• Rivers of rain drowns California.

Pandemic disasters include situations such as:

• U.S. measles outbreak is the biggest in 25 years.
• Bird flu case raises odds of human spread.
• New variant called 'most transmissible'.
• One million (pandemic) reasons to mourn.

Tornado disasters include situations such as:

• Storms kill 27 over wide swath of U.S.
• Twisters rake the South and Midwest; 21 die.
• Tornadoes rip across 8 states.
• Racing from Iowa to Indiana, derecho was a $7.58 billion disaster.
• Rare 'inland hurricane' caused $4 billion in damage in eastern Iowa.

Wildfire disasters include situations such as:

• Thousands evacuated as fires burn in Canada and the U.S.
• Wildfires force evacuation in the Carolinas.
• Manitoba Wildfires force 17,000 to evacuate homes.
• Threat from toxic fire debris will keep people from their homes for now.

How do you protect you and your family from these common May disasters?  Most of these May disasters require that you should have an evacuation plan.  It is the most difficult plan to implement because it requires some planning ahead of time.  You need to ask yourself and your family such questions as:

• Where will you go for safety?   Down the block?  Out of town?  Out of state?
• What important items will you take with you if you are unable to return to your home?
• Could you afford to leave your ownership and identity proof documents behind?
• What if you had no choice but to evacuate (by order of government officials)?

We encourage you to check out the valuable information on our website to learn how to create these two plans.   The risks to your family in May includes flood and evacuation type dangers that require an evacuation plan.  The tornado and pandemic type dangers in May require that you have a shelter in place plan.  Check out our free tiny course 'How to Protect Your Family from the Next Disaster'.  It's a great tool to start preparing your family from the worst that might happen in the month of May.

We also have tiny courses that you can complete in 10-15 minutes that show you how to create additional preparedness and safety plans in detail, step-by-step.  As our website says, “Stay safe – be prepared!”  Lives are at stake!