Returning from a recent conference on disaster preparedness, response and recovery, I had some opportunity to discuss issues with event organizers, as well as, learned presenters and associated experts. It was also a great opportunity to listen to those with in depth experience in areas of national, state, local, and private industry and areas of emergency response concentrations.
In previous posts, I’ve railed on the need for preparedness, not only on the business level, but at the individual level, as this seems to me to be the most crucial aspect of the entire preparedness process. During the conference, I heard retired Lt. General Russel Honore’ speak about this to some degree, and in the interest of an honest effort to paraphrase the good general (who I have the most respect and admiration for), below are some of the scribbling thoughts I wrote down as I listened. He spoke of what we are most familiar with, manmade and natural disasters, but even more intriguing was the increasing mixed combinations of these two types of causations; how natural disasters occur and often become exacerbated by ensuing manmade disaster directly related to the original natural disaster. Fukushima for instance, where a tsunami and subsequent flood caused structural damage to containment facilities resulting in radioactive waste water and area contamination. That in itself was the disaster but then you add the efforts (or constructive lack thereof) from government and contractors who in their attempt to stop the damage ultimately added to the disaster. The BP oil rig disaster initially caused by weather but then quickly developed into a manmade disaster caused by system failures and inaction from governments and private business. When one really thinks about natural disaster events, it isn’t hard to see the connection with manmade disaster. It seems that when the power goes out, we turn into wimps and are unable to cope with the outage. One of my favorite parts of the general’s speech was about how we can put a rover on the moon the size of an F150 truck but we still can’t figure out how to stop a squirrel from chewing on transformers and power lines, knocking out power to entire neighborhoods or grids.
In personal disaster preparedness, the Boy Scout motto is still the best; Be Prepared. Being prepared at the individual level creates a behavior which will ultimately drive a culture of preparedness, much like our great grandparents. How is it that they could do it, and without cell phones, GPS, early warning devices, automobiles, and the like? I’m not saying that loss of life didn’t occur but rather, they had a culture of individualism and preparedness whereby they knew what the stakes were if they weren’t prepared. I think they would laugh at us now when they see how reliant we are on government (local through national) to provide us with safety and preparedness. Individual preparedness starts at home. Prepare your “bug out” bag not as a prepper per se, but if the power goes out, you have the things to sustain yourself for some short period of time. It’s nice to have things work properly and because we are accustomed to it, we expect it, and when they don’t work we too often are not prepared to handle it.
