Preparedness and the Real World Realities

Gen. Russel Honore wants backpacks with food, water, essential documents and medicine for your safety: Retiring general aims to create a culture of U.S. preparedness The Associated Press Tucson, Arizona | Published: 01.09.2008 FOREST PARK, Ga. The gruff, cigar-chomping general who led federal troops into New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina is convinced America hasn't learned its lesson from the storm. (AP (and others))

You know...

While his goals are honorable and desirable, he is facing an uphill battle. I hate to be defeatist about it, but the average American and the average American business is not going to "snap to" and do it just because he says so.

There are three things working against him: Time, Money and Desire.

Most Americans, while they might desire to be prepared, do not have the time or money to get there. Those that have the time, don't have the money or desire...you see where I am going with this. It is a rare combination of factors that put one in the "magical" place of having all three and then maintaining them.

Preparedness is a living, breathing animal. It takes more than just "packing" a go-kit to be ready. You have perishables, be they food or meds, expirables (checked your waistband lately? How about the elastics in your go kit? And those clothes you put in there a year ago...two years ago?) and other things to shuffle and if you are like me, steal, promising to replace them later and never doing it.

There are no incentives for people to be prepared and plenty of disincentives. The biggest is the media and their Chicken Little approach to events. How do you convince people to "always be ready" in areas where nothing happens (DC is a perfect example - we haven't even had a really good storm lately, much less a catastrophic "issue" to practice in). And then when there "might be" something, the media pounds it so hard that people tune out (bird flu anyone?).

When jurisdictions have trouble getting money for the basics of police and fire, where do we think they are going to get money for training their citizens. And even if they do get the money, one has only to look at the health of CERT in the area to know that you would be better off throwing the money into the wind as try and train the average resident.

I would like to hear more. I would be interested to know what sort of "pressure" he could bring to bear on the average American to get them to prepare. In the meantime, I have to go and put my multi-tool back in my go-kit and check the status of the pants and shirt that I keep in it.