It’s a Matter of Life + Death
The GPS Approach to Family Emergency Planning
The Texas ice storm and related cascading events demonstrates the persistent need for individuals, their families, and connected organizations to be prepared for no-notice disasters. In a matter of 36 hours, the situation has gone from an inconvenient utility outage to a matter of life and death. The storm has impacted transportation networks, electrical production, drinking water distribution, and grocery stores.
Family emergency planning requires a pragmatic approach that involves understanding realistic threats and hazards and acquiring appropriate materials to best manage consequences. Disaster preparedness demands a degree of knowledge and proficiency on the skills necessary for complex and dynamic situations. Emergencies and disasters are stressful events that require the right mindset to deal with challenging situations. Business continuity plans often inherently assume that all employees and their families are well prepared to handle any situation and that they will be available when needed.
The GPS approach involves a five-step process to ensure that individuals and their families can live confidently in the knowledge that they can handle any situation.
Cascading Events
The term “cascading events” refers to a series of circumstances stemming from a singular incident that delivers sequential expanding impacts across geographic areas and infrastructure sectors. In the case of the Texas event, an ice storm impacted the area, and among other consequences, froze wind turbines, which reportedly support 40% of Texas’ grid. The loss of power resulted in large area power outages to include impacts to water distribution systems. Without power to adequately operate those water systems, a boil water advisory was issued, further disrupting the situation.
Pragmatic Planning
Appropriate disaster preparedness starts with pragmatic planning. Concepts on the extremes of preparedness planning range from denial (“Nothing like that would ever happen to me.”) to the “Doomsday Prepper” mentality that focuses on a specific type of event and obsesses with the acquisition of equipment and supplies. Pragmatic planning includes understanding the types of known potential events and no-notice incidents that could impact you.
With the knowledge of those potential threats and hazards, a more detailed concept comes into perspective. The primary focus of preparedness involves the lower tiers of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: food, water, shelter, warmth, and security. Preparedness priorities are based in and will change with the environment. In winter and cold weather situations, warmth and shelter may be a higher priority over food, compared to warmer weather, where water will be an immediate priority.
Gear, equipment, and supplies are often the main focus in disaster planning, and this is mostly true. Some situations may be best suited for specialized materials. If the scenario involves having to return home on foot, as seen in the Great Northeastern Blackout, a “Get Home Bag (GHB)” is the ideal solution. When assembling a kit or bag, the old adage of “two is one; one is none” is balanced with the other adage of “ounces make pounds and pounds makes pain.” Backup materials are often needed, but having multi-use items will add additional functionality. Buying cheap or inappropriate equipment can lead to that piece of gear failing when you need it most.
Medical supplies, to include trauma kits, first aid kits, and routine medications or devices, are other necessary items. Minor cuts and scrapes can become infected in disaster situations and lead to dangerous consequences. Likewise, personal hygiene is critical in long-term utility outages.
Important personal documents, such as birth certificates, driver’s licenses, and insurance documents, should be scanned and uploaded to a cloud storage solution and/or stored on an encrypted USB drive.
Electrical power is necessary for running phones and other personal devices. Solar charges, vehicle power converters, and home emergency generators are all solutions, but also have constraints.
Family emergency plans need to include a communications plan. This means letting others know where you are, what you intend to do, and what backup plans you may have. During large-scale critical incidents such as terrorist attacks, cell network capacity will be quickly overwhelmed, and text messages will be the best means of communication.
Personal security is another factor that increases in importance during a disaster situation. When civil order is reduced, bad people do bad things, and individuals need to be prepared to take necessary action to protect themselves and their families. In most cases, this will involve avoiding confrontation. You never lose a fight you don’t get involved in.
Knowledge and Proficiency
While having a set of disaster preparedness tools and equipment with a cache of supplies is essential, having the knowledge on how each of those items works and having practiced their use is critical. An item that you don’t know how to use or isn’t properly maintained becomes dead weight and essentially useless. Medical capabilities, especially in trauma response, require both the supplies and proficiency to be effective in a disaster setting. Proficiency is a perishable skill that requires routine practice.
Mindset
Emergencies and disasters are inherently stressful situations. In those circumstances, mental states may not allow someone to think clearly, make sound decisions, and operate equipment they have looked at once a year. Managing stress, both in the short term and over a longer period, is key to maintaining survival capabilities. Keeping calm and cool can spread to others.
Individual Preparedness in Business Continuity
Business continuity and organization emergency plans tacitly assume that employees and their families are prepared to handle disaster events and able to function when disaster strikes. If employees are focused on securing food and water, they will not be available for continuity or daily business operations.
The GPS Approach to Family Emergency Planning
Over the past several years, GPS has worked with our exclusive clients to prepare themselves, their families and their organizations for critical incidents and large-scale disasters. We have a proven 5-step process that allows us to assess, plan, outfit, train, and rehearse for a variety of incidents or situations (both known and unknown) so that families can live their lives with confidence to withstand any storm that comes their way.
Contact us if you are interested in the GPS Family Emergency Planning Toolkit and related training for yourself, your family, or your business. GPS also offers the Sam Rosenberg LiveReady Kits, which are ideally suited for individual preparedness fundamentals.