(Not) swept away
This past Saturday afternoon I sat glued to cable news, streaming online video and social media. I watched anxiously as a tsunami triggered by the 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile was scheduled to make landfall on the southeast shores of the Big Island of Hawai'i. As someone who is proud to have been born and raised in the Aloha State, and who still has family and childhood friends on O'ahu and the Big Island, I was worried about the potential disaster and devastation that could ensue.
What I wasn't overly worried about, however, were my family and friends. Why? Because Hawai'i really has its act together when it comes to responding to and alerting its citizens about impending emergencies. Hawai'i's civil defense system, which has been in place for decades, sounded sirens hours before the tsunami was scheduled to arrive in the Islands. And while I recall how eerie those sirens are (the state tests them every month for all the public to hear), they do get your attention and inspire action.
I remember a similar tsunami warning one day while I was a senior in high school (um, we won't mention what year that was), and how we were all ordered to head home or, for those who lived in low-lying areas, to higher ground. Much like Saturday's tsunami warning, that event many years ago amounted to a whole lot of nothing...yet think how many lives could have been lost on either occasion without a warning system or the compliance of residents to take action if a sizable tsunami actually had hit.
A few years ago I had the pleasure of working on the development of the State of Texas' "Ready or Not?" campaign, which provides emergency preparedness planning information and resources for Texas' citizens. The program and accompanying Web site offered lists of items families should have in their emergency preparedness kits (not to mention that they should even have emergency preparedness kits to begin with), establishing family meeting points, evacuation routes and contact lists, and a host of other essential information addressing a variety of emergency scenarios. So many of us take our safety and security for granted: Do YOU have an emergency preparedness kit? Do YOU have a plan to evacuate (or take refuge in your own home) for up to several days? Where will you turn for accurate, timely news and information when disaster strikes? Where will you meet family and loved ones? What will you do about your pets? Do you and your family have enough water, food and medication to survive for days or even weeks? (For the record, my emergency preparedness kit also contains a handle of Tito's vodka.)
While the degree of damage and lives lost in Chile in the early hours of Saturday morning can't and shouldn't be understated, the devastation would have been far worse had that country not been prepared for and anticipated such an event. I'm not trying to be an alarmist, but if you haven't given serious thought to how you would survive a catastrophic event, you should start now. I'm thankful that, as a result of growing up in a state that takes the welfare of its citizens seriously, my friends and family back home knew what to do...and so do I.
Resources:
State of Texas "Ready or Not?" Emergency Preparedness Web site
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