Emergency managers and the many different disciplines and organizations they partner with are working every day to make their communities a safer and better place to be; before, during and after a disaster. 

Having cut my teeth here on the West Coast, I have always envied emergency managers who have hurricanes as their worst-case disaster. This is for two reasons. One is that they have a set schedule on the calendar that is identified and known by as the hurricane season, which, by the way, just started on June 1, and was preceded by Tropical Storm Alberto. Evidently Alberto did not get the save-the-date message and arrived a few days early. 

Secondly, you can see hurricanes and tropical storms coming days, even weeks out as they form in the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico. With our 24-hour news cycle, even the people who are procrastinators will finally run to the hardware store to get plywood and to the grocery store for canned food and water. People have time to heed warnings and evacuate from danger areas. 

Emergency managers and their associated partners on the West Coast have earthquakes as our major catastrophe that everyone is working to address. We too know that a day of reckoning is coming and will arrive with a vengeance. Our problem is that the earthquake “season” is 365 days long. There is no predicting when the next  Big One will arrive. It could be tomorrow, it could be another 100, 200 or 500 years from now.

Though not an earthquake, we also know that the Mt. Rainier volcano did erupt around 500 years ago, sending forth a significant lahar. Thus, we have catastrophic events that will be “come as you are” events. There will be no significant warning that allows people and businesses to become prepared. If you want to prepare—now is the time to do it.

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