On Wednesday evening, King County held a town hall meeting at Evergreen Middle School near Redmond.

One of the topics discussed at the meeting was emergency preparedness and what people can and should do in the case of an emergency, natural or man made.

At the meeting, Jody Miller, deputy director of the King County Office of Emergency Management, gave a presentation with tips for how individuals, families and communities can be ready in the event of a disaster.

She said one of the key words to preparedness is resilience, which to her, means strength — bending, but not breaking. In order to be resilient, Miller said individuals need to be prepared for any number of potential disasters.

Living in the Pacific Northwest, she said those potential disasters include earthquakes, floods, power outages, disease outbreaks, extreme heat, landslides, wildfires and volcanoes.

“It’s definitely worthy of us paying attention,” Miller said about the last potential disaster as King County has a couple volcanoes nearby to the north and south, also noting that Wednesday was the 36-year anniversary of Mount St. Helens erupting.

Miller also discussed the types of earthquakes that could hit the area and how she and her team will soon go through a four-day earthquake training.

In an emergency situation, there are a number of things that people should be prepared for.

First, Miller said, certain roads may be closed and stores may run out of supplies. Because of this, she said people should have a plan in place and a kit to provide food, water and supplies for up to 7-10 days.

The kit should include food, water, medications, flashlights, blankets, tools and pet food and supplies if needed.

Second, Miller stressed the importance of people being personally ready for an emergency as professional services may not be able to get to where they need to be or services may need to be diverted to higher-need areas — especially with limited resources.

“We’re operating at maximum capacity right now,” Miller said about her department.

One of the key things residents and businesses can do is know their neighbors, Miller said. This is because if services cannot get out to where they are, people will have to take care of each other.

“Preparedness is a partnership,” she said.

Other steps residents can take include retrofitting their homes, which can include securing large furniture and wall hangings. Miller said people should also know how and when to turn off their utilities.

Families should have a plan in place that takes into account circumstances such as power outages, the inability to travel and limited communication.

With the latter, Miller said communication can be as simple as writing a sign to hang on your window so people outside can see if you and your family are OK or if you need help.

And for families with four-legged members, they should be included in the plan, as well.

“Pets are family, too,” Miller reminded the crowd.

In addition, King County as well as the City of Redmond offer resources such as the latter’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training classes, the next of which begins in September. CERT is a program that trains people in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization and disaster medical operations.

“Using the training, CERT members can assist others following an event when professional responders are not immediately available,” the city’s website states. “CERT members are encouraged to support emergency response agencies by taking a more active role in emergency preparedness projects in their community.”

King County Council member Kathy Lambert, who represents unincorporated areas near Redmond, went through the CERT training and said she learned a lot of skills such as how to set up a triage following a disaster and how to correctly use a fire extinguisher.

“These are not skills I learned in college,” she said.

The county will soon also be rolling out Alert King County, its new public emergency alert system.

Miller said this free service will alert residents on things such as evacuations, public health notices or shelter-in-place notifications following a disaster. Only the most extreme emergencies, she said.

Residents can sign up at kingcounty.gov/prepare to receive phone, text or email notifications. Miller said phone landlines are already in the system so they are focusing on wireless users as about 25 percent of households are now wireless.