As a professional disaster researcher I can assure you that I have done zero preparation for a disaster. I am 100% not prepared. Because preparation for any type of disaster first requires not living paycheck to paycheck.

If your reaction to thinking about disasters through the lens of class is to make a to-do list for poor people and then congratulate yourself on it, then you might not be part of the solution

The responses to this are familiar to anyone who critiques the status quo by bringing in class, race, gender, etc. You are given a list of things you 'should' be doing and talked to like a child.

I taught in a homeland security program for years and this is still a huge hurdle. People still think in terms of tips and tricks or know-how, rather than about structures. There is work to be done.

I would suggest to anyone who read my initial tweet and felt angry or wronged somehow to think about why that is and why we are quoted the Whole Community webpage when we talk about inequality.

In addition- no one thought to ask (aside from people in Japan) why this might be a topic today. For us here we get a lot of info about preparedness. For instance- glass proof slippers and cell phone battery chargers. These sound great- Are they an investment I am going to make?

Given that I have about as much soft knowledge about disasters as someone can have- does it not tell us something that I have no well supplied emergency stash? I know this to be true of many other people. Should that not concern us?

I don't take this personally- But I will say that if you have stood at a designated evacuation area with someone who watched their family swept away even though they did everything they were supposed to preparation wise you might stop thinking about these things as checklists.