TIPS FOR FINDING MISSING LOVED ONES

When disaster strikes, people often go missing.

Even with the bestlaid plans, family members might be unable to meet at prearranged points. Cell phones, filled with contact information of friends and relatives, are left behind in the rush to escape danger, which means there is no way to check in with family or answer frenzied calls from friends out-of-state.

In those cases, the Red Cross encourages people to use its national website or contact local chapters to check in as safe and well, or use it to find someone who’s missing.

But finding missing or displaced family and friends after a devastating event can be overwhelming and confusing.

Here are a few tips that may help:

 Parents should ask child-care providers or schools what their policy is for when a catastrophic disaster hits and whom they’ll need to call if children need to be moved.

 Persistence matters. There may be several roadblocks before one contact method pans out.

 Try calling the people you’re searching for during off-peak hours, when the working lines are less clogged.

 Try texting if calls aren’t going through.

 Check social media — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram — to see if they are online.  Email. Even if a phone is gone, those who are missing might still be able to log on to a computer.

 Call people missing loved ones are close to who may know where they are.  Check in with their neighbors, employer, school or church — anywhere they usually hang out or spend time.

 For those in distant locations, try sending a snail-mail letter that has a good chance of getting forwarded if the missing person has relocated.

— Jill Tucker