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Government’s Role in a Disaster

Feb 17
Posted by admin in Business Continuity Planning, Business Disruption, Business Interruption, Business Preparedness Steps, Emergency Management, Hurricane Preparedness, Personal Preparedness, Scenario Planning

Damage Levy


Economics of a Disaster

When a large disaster hits a community or a region it brings commerce to a halt, often for weeks. It is common knowledge that many small businesses go out of business because they cannot “weather the storm.” A business that is currently losing money or not making much money is very vulnerable to any down time. They cannot afford to lose their customer base to another business who is able to open. These small businesses are concerned about getting open soon – to get money flowing in, to keep employees working and paid. Basically, without money coming in the business cannot pay employees or their commitments. When employees don’t get paid they cannot purchase and they cannot pay their commitments. The circle of the economics in the region is flat – halted and in trouble. When no money circulates – no one has it. We are all dependent upon money changing hands every day. I pay you, you buy groceries, the grocery company pays for the product and operational costs which enable all companies involved to stay in business.
A quick and straight forward example would be the island of Kuai in Hawaii. In 1992 Hurricane “Iniki” devistated the island and the tourists were evacuated along with some residents. Everything came to a quick halt. Being isolated made the challenge even harder. Islands are extremely dependent upon goods from other places. With no tourists there is little money coming in – especially when the crops were shredded as well.
What can be done to jump start this island economy again? I was a part of the solution. I will answer this a little later.

Businesses

Medium to Large companies/corporations carry insurance for interruptions and disasters but that insurance often has a very high deductible. It is often in the millions of dollars per occurance. Large companies are generallly not looking for government assitance with their loss. However, some medium and most certainly many of the small businesses do look for federal assistance. Either they don’t have insurance, are under insured or they do not have the ability to come up with the deductible on their own by way of their cash reserves or via a loan at a local bank. If they have great insurance, they will be better off even though recovery may still be slow.

Homeowners

Homeowners that have a mortgage have income coming in via some type of job or another source. A large portion of the jobs are usually a part and parcel of the local economy – although certainly not all. When your house is damaged and your family is placed into a tough situation, it can be extremely stressful to be suddenly not able to go to your home and now you must live elsewhere. The infrastructure is damaged – life seems to be focused on survival – not necessarily starvation but emotional and phyiscal survival. The business you work for is also down. So even if you could go to work, you can’t. I have to admit, fear comes upon you when you think about no home, no work and the area is turned upside down. But most people well react if given an opportunity and some way to do so – some hope. If there is light at the end of the tunnel, we all want to move towards it. But who will provide that light? Who do I have to pay to get the light turned on so to speak?
I cannot pay my mortage, I don’t have much cash on hand and my credit cards will be maxed out soon. I have no income and my home and belongings are destroyed. I am hurting – my whole family is hurting. I want this feeling to end!

State and Local Government

Management of highways, bridges, stop lights, police, fire, ambulance, emergency response, security/safety of the inhabitants falls upon State and Local Governments. The infrastructure of the region can be severely damaged. So much so that even if your home is liveable and your job still needs you to get there, it might be impossible. You might be restricted from leaving your area or from entering another area. You are not alone in this problem either. You need things back to normal as quickly as possible. But, how will that happen and who will do it?

Federal Government

States have some reserve funds for disasters but it usually doesn’t go very far. They call upon FEMA and SBA to assist them and the businesses of the area. If money can be infused and used to repair or rebuild the infrastructure, to repair and rebuild businesses and even repair and the rebuild of homes that are not insured or that are underinsured, then we can get a jump start to getting the circle of the economy going again.
FEMA will help the State pay for the costs involved in repair or replacement of roads, bridges and all aspects of the infrastructure including clean up. FEMA can help stabilize families for a short period of time through Individual Assistance by way of “grant” money. They will quickly determine if your home is “safe, habiltable and secure.” If a small grant will help the home be that way then here comes the grant money. However, if a small amount of money won’t do it a family is then refered to the Small Business Administration’s Disaster Loan Program. SBA does an assessment of damages to the home, determines what if anything your insurance company will pay for and then tries to provide you with a low interest loan for the difference or the whole amount. The loan is payable over 20-30 years so that it is affordable. Even if your insurance should happen to cover the damages, but you are in a long term dispute with the insurance company, SBA can help by loaning the money to you until the insurance proceeds come in. SBA is then paid back by the insurance proceeds (hopefully for all of it but if not, SBA will carry the difference). You are then returned back to normal sooner than without that help. If your insurance is “Johnny on the Spot” and will cover everything, then you chose wisely.
If a business has no insurance or is under insured the SBA will determine the damages to the facility, to equipment and to your inventory due to the disaster. If possible, SBA will provide you with a low interest loan to begin repairs, to buy inventory, to repair/replace damaged equipment and they will spot you operating funds to get going again. The sooner you get open, the sooner you can pay for employees to return and of course serve your customers.

Benefits to Government Involvement

    You could have your business saved
    You could have your home back to predisaster condition
    You go back to work
    You can travel freely again
    Your kids can go back to school
    You can get help for your home and personal belongings
    You get some help – a jump start to recovery

What Benefit does Government get from helping?

Taxes are being paid again because the circle of the economy is going again. Certainly they are to help those who need help and that is a higher cause but initially, if the government didn’t get involved, many would have to turn to welfare and other programs paid for by other tax payers. You see, everything has to be in place again for you to return to “normal.” FEMA does not buy you a new home or anything like that and SBA really does make you pay them back. The government is not free insurance in this case. If so everyone would drop their home owners and wait for the government to hand them the money. No, it is much wiser than that. I have seen it work well since the 70′s when I saw it first in action.

Hits on FEMA and SBA

They don’t move fast enough. They get that a lot of course. They are not first responders – it isn’t in their charter even though people expect them to be first responders. Could they move faster though? Yes, they are improving delivery every year of their programs. You have to know that the State must request disaster assistance from FEMA and SBA. The feds cannot overstep their bounds as states have rights in this area. The states are to shoulder the role of emergency management/first resonders until the federal government is involved. Then it is a coordinated effort. The scenes of Katrina still plague us. There was a break down at all levels of government. Local, State and yes Federal. The winds didn’t do the horrific damage, it was the water from a break in the levy. Far too many people were not evacuated from New Orleans like they should have – busses didn’t run. Nursing homes were still full. The plan broke down and everyone went to the superdome. You all know the history there. The lessons learned are many. But you must know that is was the infusion of Federal Money combined with private donations and private citizens that helped New Orleans recover. The circle of economy was slow to get started. Initially there wasn’t a large enough customer base for businesses because the homes weren’t habitable in a reasonable time frame. They weren’t getting repaired – there was an insurance battle going on behind the scenes over coverages for hurricanes versus water intrusion. Besides, without a proper solution to the levy system, no one could get a permit or insurance. I have been there many times since Katrina and each time the city looks better than the last but it still isn’t 100% back to normal. New Orleans needs tourism to survive and it is slowly coming back as well.

Conclusion

Government does serve a vital role in disasters. It makes state and local entities have disaster plans which have to be tested. It encourages individuals and businesses to have disaster plans. It carries the expertise and the equipment to step in to assist us in getting back to normal. No matter how bad the rap is that it gets, it doesn’t shy away from the powerful role that they must play. That FEMA or SBA worker that is there to help has left their family in love ones to assist you. It isn’t easy to be in a disaster zone for them either. Lodging and food are basic – difficulties exist but they complete their jobs and then go home with some satisfaction that they helped make a difference when a difference was critically needed.

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Business – Steps to Recovery

Dec 08
Posted by admin in Business Continuity Planning, Business Disruption, Business Interruption, Business Preparedness Steps, Emergency Management, Hurricane Preparedness, Scenario Planning, Uncategorized

Most of the time, the thoughts of any major business disruption occuring at any business is almost completely off the radar. Because of this, proper steps to create a plan are also not a priority. Because we don’t believe it can happen to us, we don’t do much with any fleeting thought about getting it done. So, with that said, many businesses have not prepared properly for an event or it is so old that it won’t be effective if you try to use it. Perhaps they think it will take too much time and energy.
Let me go through some basics and try to show you that if you will address these key areas you will build a plan. Once the basic elements are covered you can add detail and specifics to tasks and responsibilities which would be the who, what, when, where and how of each task that must be done.

1. Detection – You have to know that something has happened before you will do anything about it. Many companies have automatic alarms for certain things at the facility. If an earthquake hits, a tornado or a flood happens we usually try to get better information to know if it affects our business. We try to drive there but we must know. That is step one.
2. Stablilze the Situation — If it happens while you are at work you must make sure everyone is safe before you do anything else. If it is to evacuate, to send home or perhaps you have injured employees then take care of them, they are more important than business cares. In large disasters, there will be no 911 response – it will be you – so be ready for it.
3. Escalation — Once a “disaster” has occured and it has or will affect your business operations then that basic information must get to the key decision makers. They are the owners, the officers and leaders of the company and they must give you the power to act, to spend and to accomplish – at least on the major things that must be done. Time and effort cannot be put in the wrong direction at the wrong time unless there is no other choice. Call them, text them – have that ability to get them day or night. Don’t be shy, it is better that they know than to find out another way.
4. Notification – Call the people you need immediately to start getting a response effort organized. You can’t do it all by yourself and the longer you don’t call others to help is time mostly wasted. So much more can be done with others at your side. You will see the need as you read through these steps.
5. Damage Assessment — The reason that this isn’t number three is damage assessments can take time and you can’t wait to escalate what you know to the top so they are aware and tracking everything you do from that moment on. You need them and you will want them engaged. You can provide more details to them as it is gathered and verified. “How bad is it?” That will always be their first question. Once you have people to help in this effort (notification efforts) you will have some core people to work with. Get them assigned to gather information – some by media sources others in person at the site if at all possible. Then, make sense of the information you are getting from them so you can report you initial findings to the top person or people. Then take some direction from them if they give it or if they ask tell them what you are doing next in the process of getting your doors open or operations going.
6. Initial Response — What resources do we have that are available to us that we own or control? You must know this early in order to go to the next step. Be thorough with this first response. It will save you time and money in the short run and in the long run. If you have a generator that can run your building at another location, they you don’t have to search for one. If you need 10 but only have two that belong to you, then you know how many you will need. Move quickly – the sooner you get this done the quicker you can get to the next step.
7. Full Response – Move resources, gather resources that you will need in the next step which is the intial recovery of your buisiness processes. Getting people, equipment and supplies to the right place so they can begin to function is no small task especially if communication routes are hindered or even down. This is very important. I have seen so many companies have trouble because they get the facility but no people or equiupment to function or worse they get the facility and the people but no phones, computers and the software to function properly. The employees sit and there isn’t much to do but complain how screwed up this effort is. “Why did they call us away from our homes and families if they weren’t ready for us?” They are right, why did you call them to come in? They have their own problems to solve at home. You would be better off finding out their availability first and then as soon as you have the next step done, then call them. They will be glad that you were organized and didn’t call until everything was in place and they can start to work.
8. Initial Recovery — Once you have the facility or facilities operational then you get the employees there and you can open for business even if it is only on a partial or temporary basis. Customers try to understand but they understand a bunch more when you can do or sell some things even if you can’t do them all. You can still keep them engaged with you and you can get some cash flow as you work to get more products or services available to them. An example that I can give you is a particular pizza company had damage to their site from a hurricane and knew it would be weeks before they could ever open properly – they had no power either. So, they secured a portable pizza cooker from out of the area and they began to cook pizzas for those still in the zone and for workers in the same zone. They became a success story because they were proactive at this step. It was amazing how many pizzas they could cook. “Get your doors open as soon as possible” must be your mantra. Have a sense of urgency about it – make the decisions early to move in a direction to keep your business viable and operational even if it is only a bandaide type of effort.
9. Recover — Open your doors and service the customers no matter how hard it is to do so. So you brought in a generator(s) for power to open, it will sound expensive but you will have sales, please the customer and that relates into market share. It is hard to explain, but customers appreciate those businesses who go out of their way to open and serve them – they think it was just for them and they think that it is a miracle that you did it. Sure some will expect it, but most are very appreciative and they will remember how you were there during their hour of need – when they needed you the most!
10. Transition back to Normal — This is a key step in your plan because it must also be done in an organized manner. You don’t move resouces or give them back before you should. Be sure of your decision on this before you try to go back to your normal operational mode. You must see that people might have changed some buying habits or they want more of one of your services or more than another following the disaster. It happens a lot that businesses don’t read the tea leaves so to speak and they become irrelavant for a period of time following a disaster. Sales drop and you can’t put your finger on it because you weren’t watching. Imagine a home cleaning business that was doing well before a disaster but you were only able to start around the fringes of the disaster because the homes in the zone have other problems. So, as the disaster zone homes get contractors etc. for the work the contractors get crews to fix and then clean up including the final stages of the clean up with is your business. You didn’t link up with any of them and now you are locked out of the work. Hmm, you should have been watching the trending.

Your business preparedness plan will have the basics if you put some structure to the above steps. Who do you escalate to? What is their contact information? Who do you call in the notification step and what is their contact information – all of the options which include cell and texting as well as home numbers. Who will do the damage assessment and what are they looking for if they are not trained in it? When will they report back? How severe is the damage after you get the reports back? What metric do you have to determine if it is Severe, Moderate or Minor in actualilty? You must relate the cold hard facts to the decision makers. You must paint a simple quick picture in their minds eye and then you can get them to respond to it. Give recommendations on what you will do in the next step – how you will do it and when they can expect an update or a status report. Then keep the status reports flowing to all the key people invovled. Measure your success by what is accomplished not by the effort provided. You will get through these steps quickly on minor disasters but for the bad ones, you will be looking a a day or two to get your arms around it depending on how big you are and how many locations you have in the disaster.
Now, go out and do some planning to be better prepared!

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Self Reliance Principles

Oct 15
Posted by admin in Business Continuity Planning, Hurricane Preparedness, Personal Preparedness, Scenario Planning

If you are unwilling to take the time, to prepare when you have ample opportunity or to spend small amounts of money on being prepared, how can you expect others to do it and why would you expect others to pick up the pieces for you?
This is a question that everyone should address before they casually walk through life putting themselves and their families at risk.
Self Relianace is the first and most foundational element of personal preparedness and in the end, accountability. When you fail to take preparedness seriously and because of that fact, you and your familiy suffer much more than necessary who is accountable? Would you blame all of it on the government?
Assumptions that people make:

    The Government will always be there to help me
    My neighbors will always be there to help me
    My relatives will always be there to help me
    My Church will always be there for me
    My friends will always be there for me

If you rely upon the above as your solution to it all, you might find yourself without the assistance you expect. Depending upon the type and severity of the disaster, most of the people involved in your sphere of assumptions may be suffering the same problems that your are and may not be able to get to you. What if they are counting on you? They were too busy to prepare as well – now what?
Self Reliance Principles start first with your attitude; about who is responsible for your actions, your work, your views about life and what you should do with it. If you are attached to others more than you are to yourself and your family then you might just be “others” reliant. Those who look outward for their every need fail to see what they can do for themselves with some concerted effort. If you want others to support you, to send you money and to take you from cradle to grave you are probably not going to read any further. But, if you are concerned about accomplishments, in furthering your capabilities and in providing for yourself and your family – then others go ahead and read on.
How prepared are you for the following:

    Home Fire
    Water in the house
    Severe Illness
    Car Accident
    Loss of your job
    Divorce
    Bad Weather
    Business Failure
    Loss of Income
    Termites
    Biological Hazards
    Chemical Spills
    Tornados

The Individual
For you as an individual, even though the scope is small, you feel like you have had a disaster or an emergency if any of the above happen to you even if not to too many others.
Common threads always appear in each type of disaster. There are those who are better prepared than others. The difference can often be seen as staggeringly different. Life Safety is not something anyone should take lightly but many do. The images of Katrina will be on our minds for a very long time. Helpless people stuck on the roof tops of their homes – a sports center full of people who had no where to go. No one likes to suffer more than need be and we don’t like to see others suffer in such situations. But, those who take ownership of their own preparedness can feel some comfort in knowing that they have done the best they can to be ready for anything. I have noticed the difference in their attitudes following a disaster: the “we will get through this and I can make it happen” versus the ones that say: “where is the government, woe is me, they are going to pay for their shoddy response to my needs!”
Self Reliance principles dictate that we must assume that there will be no one there to assist us in the first hours or days of a disaster.
Self Reliance, in the case of a small home type emergency or disaster, is built on the mantra that we must take ownershiop of most of the steps to response, to fix and to recover from that emergency or disaster rather than rely 100% on our list of people/agencies that we expect to be “johnny on the spot.” If you lose your job you must find another. Others may try to help in the process but it is up to you to do all you can to get another job. It may take time and effort and a very positive attitude, but it is so much better than the person who locks themselves in their house and claims that there are no jobs out there for them when in reality they aren’t really sure – they just assume it.
Many people in the U.S. have turned into “takers” — that is, they will not spend the time and money on personal preparedness in lieu of the fact that “someone” will give it to them.
The disadvantaged people have a good reason for not being as prepared. For reasons beyond their control, they have to rely upon others. That means that someone must include them in “their” preparedness plans. If you have an elderly parent or grandparents – you must ensure that they are taken care of – that they are prepared and you are prepared to help them.
Methodical Preparedness — when a person goes to a store why can’t they buy a few cans of food every trip for a food supply? Why can’t you increase your first aide kit or 72 hour kit one piece at a time? You see, the excuses for not being prepared can’t hold water. Anyone can afford, over time, to have all that is required to be self reliant. But, if you don’t take ownership you will be caught eventually without the items you need. Then, instead of being accountable for it, you try to blame your problems on someone else.Remember, a self reliant person/family is one that does not fear a potential disaster. They tackle it when it arrives. They evacuate if they know their home is in danger. They know where to go and they have the provisions to take care of themselves. They know who to call and can take care of the variables that come their way.

    Wisdom is the wise use of Knowledge.
    Knowledge is the understanding of facts and truth.
    Truth is a widely accpeted fact.
    A fact is an indisputable truth.

Examples:

    Fact = the Federal Government has stepped up its campain to get people to take ownership for being prepared for disasters.
    Fact = Churches and Non-Profits have been putting on “Personal Preparedness Fairs” accross the country.
    Fact = Large portions of people in the U.S. are unprepared for a disaster.
    Fact = Personal Preparedness does not always cost a lot of money upfront – many steps cost nothing.
    Fact = Large portions of the U.S. do not have a 72 hour kit.
    Fact = Those who are prepared recover better – on average
    Fact = Companies around the U.S. are more interested in being prepared than ever before.
    Wisdom = You should start now to build your personal family preparedness plan.
    Wisdom= Attitude is the first step towards being prepared.
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Risks, Threats and Prevention – what you need to know.

Sep 20
Posted by admin in Hurricane Preparedness, Personal Preparedness, Scenario Planning

Day to Day Risks

Bad things can happen to us. Often, it is without warning. You accept risk just by driving you car or going outside at night. We all understand them to some degree and are shocked when something bad happens to us or a friend/neighbor. How much control do you have over someone who is texting while driving and runs a red light? It depends on where you are, if you are just starting out or zipping along while the light is still green. Defensive driving has been proven to help in many circumstances and it is a way of protecting yourself. I never jump out on a green light anymore after being hit back in the 1990′s. My view was blinded by a big van on my left. He saw it and reacted in time but it was too late for me. Now, I just take a little more time.
You can find out what types of risks you are subject to for your area. Check with your local Emergency Management for your city and or county/parish. Crime, natural disasters, old infrastructure (gas lines in San Bruno), roadways, etc. In this article I am going to concentrate on natural disasters but the risks, threats and prevention principles work in anything you want to study or analyze.

Risks and Natural Disasters

A Risk is the potential for something bad to happen to you or your property. There is a rating for each area that people live in and it deals with the potential and likelihood of a disaster affecting you/your property. If by chance you are in a Flood Zone, as rated by the FEMA Flood Mapping, you are at risk. Of course, you might say that the map says that you are in a 100 year flood plane but that doesn’t mean that they only happen every 100 years. They generally happen much more often. The closer you are to a stream or river the potential rises – however, you might be high above the river so the likelihood of it getting to you is low unless a swollen river eats away the ground under your home. But, lets assume that you are near a river and you are clearly in a flood zone. You have accepted the risk that your home could be hit/flooded by the river. Now, lets bring in what a threat is. Lets say that during the spring run off you hear about a major storm coming in with a lot of rain. Warnings go out for low lying areas (flood zones) and so there is now a threat. A real threat at that. Evacuations may be ordered and you lose control over what will happen to your home. It is a turkey shoot now and your home may or may not survive because it is in a risky zone. Now, lets talk about prevention. The obvious is don’t build next to a river. But in this context we will discuss how you may protect yourselve even though you are in a high risk area. A protective device might be built between you and the river – a concrete retaining wall that is high enough to divert a swollen stream around your home. Most people will use sand bags as that protective device because they don’t have the money for a retaining wall or never worried about it. You now have the general picture of understanding a risk, when a threat appears and what a protective device is for that scenario.

Threats

You know when a hurricane is coming. You know a little about when a tornado is coming and when a river will crest. But what about Earthquakes? How do you determine if there is a threat to your home? Well, it is near impossible since no one can truly predict earthquakes. However, you must factor into your living in an earthquake zone the full measure of risk calculation. Knowing exactly where the fault line is in relationship to your home is important. Understand what the USGS is saying about potential earthquakes. If you are on top of compacted fill – it is an even higher risk due to potential liquifaction of that soil. There may not be a threat that can be verbalized regarding earthquakes but it is there. The same will be true of a terrorist action or an abduction of a child. The threats are out there. Some places are higher targeted areas than others. So, you must assume, to some degree, that the threat of it happening is implied by the area in which you live. If you believe that, you will then be willing to protect yourself which I will discuss later.
People today are dismissing risks and especially threats. When the weather service says that you should evacuate or perhaps they send out a manditory evacuation, many people choose to stay behind which increases their risks for harm to themselves. Never mind the home which is in danger either way, but to determine that you – yes you, will be fine is very similar to rolling the dice at a gambling table. When you keep you kids behind to have fun riding through the storm it starts to sound reckless and thoughtless. I have seen it many times. If you leave a baby in their car seat while you shop with the outside temperature in the high 90′s you are reckless and you have put your baby at risk of death and you will find yourself in a long term stay in the pen. In this case there is again only an implied threat from the heat to the baby in the car but it is every bit as real as a tornado on its way. But, for a lot of people, unless someone spells out the threat to them in terms they can understand, they will go along their merry way and not pay any attention to it. Storm warnings, dangerous road conditions, a heat wave etc., it happens all the time so why worry? There is always a threat to power when a storm comes to town. There is always a threat that you can lose control of your car in bad road conditions and there is a potenial of loss of power and brown outs from heat waves not to mention heat stroke and other related problems.
Threats are sometimes obvious and quite often not even known at the time of the disaster or incident. But, my goal here is to have you realize that they are there. They are implied, which doesn’t discount them at all, but rather makes the risk all the more dangerous. It is one thing to have time to get out of your home before something bad happens and it is another to be trapped in your home without warning. You must be ready for both. That is why they still teach duck and cover in schools.

Protection

A protective device or method/process is one that actually stops or slows down the effects of a disaster. If you can minimize the effect you may save your life and those of your family. A protective device or method doesn’t have to be 100% effective to have value. But, it does have to help and very often it then becomes a life saver. Why else would we have smoke alarms in our homes? It is to warn us and to help us get out before we are overcome with smoke and heat. There are protective devices, methods and processes for every type of disaster. They are available for you when you go out at night (reflectors, pepper spray, roads to avoid etc.). They are there for you when you hike, when you skii and when you drive down the road. Your car has protective devices on it and they have proven over time to be very good for your health.
Protection can cost money. You can have a mitigative device created and built for your home for tornados, earthquakes, fires, floods, mudslides, storms etc. They have the devices if you have the money. But, the general public does not have the money it takes to spend on more elaborate mitigation. I was involved in a situation years ago where a home owner was told that he could no longer inhabit his home after La Nina storms washed away some of the cliff area under his home. He lost a good portion of his back yard. He fought furiously to keep the home. So the Building Department had him find a solution – I am sure they knew there weren’t any. But, the man came up with one that would cost more than a million dollars that would essentially drill down over a hundred feet to bedrock and would support the home and keep it from danger. Well, after a few years it proved its worth but in so doing made the solution an example of stupidity. That is, another storm came and washed away all of the dirt under the home and driveway leading up to the home. There was the home standing on stilts as it were and no ability to get to it! My point in bringing this up is to remind you that it is better to get away from a super high risk zone than it is to spend tons of money on it thinking you have fooled mother nature. You can’t fool her, she will prove you wrong. So, a protective device is only as good as the scenario it was built for. Any increased risk and variation to it can be catestropic just the same. Sometimes, it doesn’t work at all.

Being Complacent

So, you have studied and you have discovered your risks. You understand that threats are there or may come to you just before a disaster. You have a plan for getting out of your home and a different plan to stay in your home if need be. You have spent some money on protective devices but have mostly worked on a process and plans. You are ready – or so you think. Of course, that is another subject but for right now lets assume that you are. Then, months and years go bye and you have done little with your plan and devices. You start to believe that since nothing has happened then nothing will happen. Not true, not true at all. History does not always predict the future. You have lived near a river all of your life. So, to you, it can’t happen. When it does, you are completely shocked and caught completely of gaurd! It is unbelieveable and you finally realize that you should have listened to the experts that said you have a high risk there of flooding and to take precautions.
Several years ago a teenager was abducted behind a car wash in Florida. It was caught on tape and the girl lost her life. She was walking to school. Most likely her parents had warned her for years to be careful and to watch for suspicious people and behaviors. But, because she had walked past there for many many years – hundreds of times – she was probably convinced that the warnings were not credible. She appeared to have been completely caught off gaurd by the man who walked right up to her and grabbed her. This is an extreme case of being complacent. But to some degree we all are. We don’t walk around looking around every corner or in every crack. But, there are times when/where the risk is higher and we must pay attention to them. If the police say that it is unsafe to go out after a certain hour, they are assessing the situation upon a risk and a credible threat that exists out there. As a jogger, you shouldn’t go jogging after dark in an area you are unfamiliar with. Even if you are, why do it alone? Do you not believe that there is a threat to your life there? What have you done to protect yourself? Or have you been complacent with the concept that bad things happen and they could happen to you? Why do we consistently believe that bad things only happen to other people and that somehow we are above that sort of thing? I suppose it has something to do with our pysche and our belief that we just might be superhuman. We see better than the rest, we hear better than the rest and our intellect is better than those who have died or been injured. Statistically that thinking is on shaky ground.
If you put yourself into a high risk situation you better be prepared for it. It amazes me, in a day and age with all of the modern devices that we have, that someone could go out hiking alone or climibing Mount Hood or some other risky behavior and not take a rescue beacon or a satillite phone. The reason — pure belief that they are not vulnerable. It won’t be a problem for them. So, they take off and . . .

Vulnerability

Just a few words in closing about vulnerability. First you measure Risk. You understand what a credible or implied threat is. You calculate the likelihood of it happening to you and then you must determine how vulnerable you are to it if it does happen. If you are vulnerable, do something about it. The section on protection is not meant to give you all of the devices and methods but to cause you to understand that something must be done to minimize or to stop a natural disaster or something that is bad from happening. Be a genuine believer in protection and in being prepared. Someday you will be glad that you did and your family will appreciate you consistent effort to do so and to teach them to be that way as well.
There is a thread between those who always seem to be in car accidents while others are not. There is a thread between those who suffer the worst following a disaster versus those in the same area who don’t suffer as much. Will a safe box under your home help when an tornado comes? Will a sturdy built hurricane home help? Will evacuating according to your plan help? Will creating a defensible space near your home help wihen a wild fire comes near? Will proven precautions work for you when you decide to venture out at night?
I think you can answer as I do, that they will. Please spend some time understanding your risks for your area. Understand threats and implied threats and see what protective devices, methods and processes you can implement that will help you be safer than you are now.
A prepared person is a calm person at the time of a disaster!

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