Daviel Claiborne, 8, learned a very important lesson at the Natchez Mall Saturday.

“Don’t stick a fork in the toaster to get toast out,” she said.

The method has always worked for the Ferriday resident, but the Southwest Mississippi Electric Power Association’s mall display taught Daviel differently.

The girl and her mother, Danielle, were two of the weekend shoppers who participated in Disaster Preparedness Day.

The Red Cross-sponsored event included information tables from Entergy, the National Weather Service and Emergency Management. Outside the mall, children and parents could get an up close look at fire trucks, ambulances, electric trucks and a search and rescue helicopter.

The crowd asking questions and receiving information inside was good, participants said, but not as large as hoped for.

“Any information we can bring forward is good for our customers,” Entergy customer service representative Stephen Caruthers said. “This is a better flow of traffic than three years ago, but I do wish for more.”

The Red Cross sponsored the event for the first time in 2004, but Hurricane Katrina affected the group’s planning for the day in 2005 and 2006, said Angie Brown, disaster services assistant for the Red Cross.

Azalea Knight, public relations coordinator for Southwest Power, said she thought the event offered a great service to the community.

“This is so the average person can prepare,” she said. “We have a plan, but our customers also need to have a plan for the things they need.”

Representatives from the Jackson office of the National Weather Service said they made the trip down in hopes of spreading some awareness.

The agency was distributing pamphlets on hurricanes, tornadoes and winter storms.

“Hopefully they’ll go home and look at it and pick up something from it,” said Stephen Wilkinson, a warning coordination meteorologist with the NWS.

Darren Colenburg of Fayette stopped at the mall with his children once he saw the emergency vehicles on display outside.

“We are always enjoying things like this,” he said.

“I’m just proud to see this going on. The biggest problem in our area is that people just don’t know what to do (in an emergency).”