by 3AD Scout, Survival Blog:
Many Preppers are often asked “what are you preparing for?” The responses are anything from a simple weather event to an extinction-level event. Having been in the field of disaster planning and response for 24 years, I cannot tell you the number of times someone from the public would call looking for our tornado plan, or flood plan, chemical spill plan and on and on. The reality is, many entities do not have disaster specific plans but rather general emergency operations plan that address the similar consequences of several different disasters.
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With that said, there are exceptions such as entities that are at high risk for specific disaster such as flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes or nuclear power plant emergencies. Many entities have a general Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) and then have an appendix for specific disasters. For example, a county in Florida would have a general EOP with an appendix for hurricanes, whereas a county in Minnesota would have an EOP and an appendix for blizzards. Looking at the consequences of a disaster, versus just specific disasters, will improve your level of preparedness.
One Big Beautiful Plan
Name a disaster and it will probably have the potential to knock out the power. So instead of writing several disaster-specific plans, having one plan that addresses power outages and other common consequences would make better sense. The caveat is you must consider all the various nuances of each specific disasters. For example, running a generator in the summer versus the winter months may have some differences that need to be addressed in your planning and preparedness. Consider maintenance, if you run your generator in temperatures below zero degrees Fahrenheit, then you are going to want a thinner engine oil than if you ran it in 100-degree temperatures.
Staying with the same example, you will want to make sure any extension cords are rated for extreme cold conditions. If your generator has a battery starter, you are going to want to take extra precautions to protect it from the freezing temperatures. These differences lead you to develop your standard operating procedures (SOPs), preventative maintenance checks and services (PMCS), training plans for the generator and special items you need to stockpile for your generator.
Identifying Common Consequences
Grab a sheet of paper. Make a grid of boxes. Shade in the top left and box. Now,
Down the left-hand side, write down all the different disaster you could potentially face. This should include a common household fire to a coronal mass ejection (CME) and everything in between. Across the top row of boxes write down all the consequences like power outage, loss of ingress, loss of egress, structural damage to your home, supply chain issues (this could be broke down into categories like food, water, security, transportation, sanitation, medical and others), injuries, loss of water, contamination, et cetera. Now, starting on the top left-hand side, with your first identified disaster, go to the right and put an “X” in each box signifying that that consequence may be faced with that disaster. At the end, for each consequence, count up the number of times it may be faced. The consequences with the higher number of X’s should be your priority for preparing for. For example, if you list 100 different disasters and power outage was a possibility in 99 of them but contamination was only a possibility in 10 disasters, you would want to focus your efforts on being prepared for power outages first.
Focused Prepping
By focusing on the consequences that could be faced in several different disaster you can methodically address consequences that have the highest likelihood of impacting you. By focusing on consequences you can address specifics needs quickly with a high degree of impact, versus starting with each disaster and trying to address all the needs of a single disaster.
Your lifelines
Shortly before I retired FEMA introduce a new planning concept called community lifelines. The lifelines are functions and/or services that society needs to function. When disaster happens a community needs to quickly assess any impacts to their lifelines. If the disaster has impacted a lifeline, then a solution to restore the lifeline is needed. If an earthquake causes multiple water mains to break and disrupts the delivery of safe drinking water one solution maybe bringing in pallets of bottled water that can be distributed at points of distribution sites (PODS).
