Are you prepared?

Hi everyone,


This post asks a simple question: are you prepared for a significant disaster?  This is on my mind because of two stories that appeared in my inbox this morning.  One covered the recent flooding in Texas, where residents of communities near Houston have had to be moved to higher ground by boat or high-water vehicle.  The scale of the flooding is outside of recent memory:  the Houston Chronicle quoted one man as saying "The situation is bad. I was in water waist deep ... It's the worst I've ever seen it; this is historic. I've been here 25 years and I've never seen it like this."

Image courtesy of The Weather Channel

Preparation should not just cover evacuation (as important as that is) but also what to do if a person is caught up in a disaster.  One death in the current weather event in Texas was of a teenager who

was helping a church youth group with storm debris recovery was killed in a freak accident when a tree limb fell on him. ... Det. John Snowden of the Brenham Police Department said the young man was cleaning up yard debris for neighbors. A large pine branch had failed off tree and snagged on some wires. It fell to the ground just as the young man was walking under it. "It was just a terrible, tragic accident," Snowden said. Police are not released the name of the victim at this time.

This is particularly heartbreaking because the death seems to have been caused by a lack of awareness of an overhead hazard.  Maintaining that awareness would be part of the elementary training of an emergency responder, and the death seems utterly unnecessary.

Image courtesy of Civil Defence Waikato

On a better note, a story out of Florida noted that that state's infrastructure has been 'hardened' for hurricanes, even though it's population may have become a little complacent.  Florida's Emergency Management Director Bryan Koon noted that

utility companies putting more lines underground and strengthening above-ground lines so power outages should be shorter; electronic toll-collection technology that should reduce bottlenecks at toll booths, and more people being connected via social media and phones to receive emergency alerts.

Weather in the coming days and weeks will give an idea of the level of preparedness for both individuals and governments.

Image courtesy of The Weather Channel