By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 14:19:37 +0000

Both Ready.gov and the American Red Cross deal with the catastrophic events as a result of their budgets and directives. I would venture a guess that a large majority of Americans will never be impacted by a catastrophic event managed by these teams.
Instead, they will be have those individualized (yet still personally catastrophic) events in the form of a house fire, unexpected death, loss of a job/income, etc. But, if the population had a personalized plan to deal with loss of a home, unexpected death, job/income loss, etc., then, indirectly, they could also be ready for those major catastrophic events, should they occur.
The other big issue I see with getting families “ready” (using today’s process) is there is no direction on how to write a plan. What does that mean “write a plan?” Do they write a separate plan for every POSSIBLE event that MIGHT occur? If so, what happens when a “new” event occurs for which there is no plan? And how far do they take each plan? Let’s say they “write a plan” to get out of the house (for a house fire or even one to evacuate to safe grounds), then what? Does the plan end once they are in a safe place? Or does it (and should it) take their process further to the next steps? Personally, I think any plan needs to take it all the way through to their final goal — getting their lives back to normal!
I think in trying to make it simple for everyone in hopes they will prepare, you have made the process applicable to almost no one (except those in the Gulf with hurricanes and Tornado alley – they get it).

By: Laura Southard

Laura Southard — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:37:12 +0000

Completely agree. What the heck does being prepared mean? In VA, we’ve tried to set a baseline for measurement by promoting 4 essentials (3 days’ food, 3 days’ water, battery-powered or hand-crank radio with extra batteries, and a family emergency plan). We noted research findings that indicated Virginians who had a family plan were more prepared when it came to having “stuff.” So we started emphasizing having a plan over the stuff 18 months ago. Without a clearly-defined minimum we could not accurately measure our work to encourage “preparedness” in our residents. But is that what we’re really after? VA research also says half of residents think nothing will ever happen to them. And it may not! But which half? It’s hard to motivate everyone to take action in the same direction. Discussion is needed on this topic by preparedness experts, communications professionals AND the public.

Comments on: We Need To Better Define What “Prepared” (&/Or “Resilient”) Means For The Public

By: Elizabeth

By: Laura Southard