I’ve been thinking about how in the mid-sixties (or so) “the public” became disillusioned with the civil defense preparedness efforts as their inadequacies in the face of the nuclear threat became so obvious. It seems to me something similar is occurring now.

The public is looking for information on how to be prepared and what emergency management has to offer is, frankly, little more than “tips and tricks” about writing down phone numbers, etc.

Someone working in a small EM agency with little staff, time, and authority probably can’t do much more than offer these suggestions — even when they know, as they often do, it’s not enough.

But this is where I’ve noticed I see public attitudes starting to shift. Regardless of why these are the recommendations, “the public” is starting to see them as laughable in their inadequacy to the types of chronic crises and catastrophic events that people are experiencing.

As risk increases and as individuals begin to experience more frequent/ severe disasters and I see people begin to see clearly the deep inadequacies of the traditional preparedness recommendations.

What’s frustrating is that disaster research has painted a much broader description of what individual (and community) preparedness looks like but since those answers are more complicated than “go buy stuff” almost no one wants to hear about it. I hope that changes.