By John Loftus

Times Staff Writer

Do you know what to do when a fire or some other calamity forces you from your home? Or if you and everybody else have to leave town in a hurry?

Or what about just the opposite? What do you do if it's not safe to go outside and you have to stay inside - for days?

These questions will be answered on Wednesday, Nov. 4, at 7 p.m., at an "Emergency Preparedness Workshop" sponsored by the 8th Police District Advisory Council at Nazareth Hospital, 2601 Holme Ave.

"During the workshop you will learn how to shelter in place, become familiar with your neighborhood evacuation routes, know what emergency supplies and copies of important documents you should have ready, and find out how to stay informed during an emergency," said MaryAnn E. Tierney, Philadelphia's deputy managing director for emergency management.

The city plans to hold similar workshops in each police district through the end of the year.

One such workshop was held last month in the 2nd Police District.

"We have no intelligence that says something sinister will happen real soon," Joan Przybylowicz, deputy director for external affairs, emergency management, said during that sparsely attended event at the Philadelphia Protestant Home on Tabor Avenue.

But bad things can happen, she added, and it's best to be prepared. Przybylowicz said the push to get city residents prepared for trouble followed such catastrophic events as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. When John Street was mayor, the city did a survey of its own preparedness, she said. Two hundred ways to improve were suggested, she said. And one of those was to educate the population about first thinking about the unthinkable and then telling people how to prepare for it.

One of the points made at that workshop is that people who have to flee a burning house shouldn't be hunting around for such items as keys, medicines, flashlights or money while they're surrounded by smoke and flames.

They should have a bag already packed with those things that they could just grab as they're rushing out.

What should be in that bag? Here are a few suggestions:

¥ A seven-day supply of prescription medications;

¥ Medical information;

¥ A flashlight;

¥ A battery-powered or hand-crank radio;

¥ A first-aid kit;

¥ Batteries;