Won't You Be My Neighbor

The image of Fred Rogers in "The Neighborhood" conjures up sweet childhood memories for most adults (and children) in the USA. He taught us basic civics lessons, how to be decent and caring to one another, as framed in the picture above (some years after that episode aired) with Dr. François Clemmons who shared a foot bath to cool off on a hot day. Through that show, Fred Rogers taught children how to deal with emotions, in particular one of the deepest and foreboding, fear. Fear seems to be top of mind in our current sociopolitical climate.

An article was published in the NY Times early this year titled “Time to Panic” that covers the many threats, causes, and behavioral psychology of our societal inertia in the face of climate change and extreme weather. The article calls for concerted, collective action on climate change, but rather than waiting on community activism, which I do support, or asking you to hide behind a bunker in your home or flee to the hills with your stockpile of supplies, instead, I would present basic practical steps that we all might take on an individual basis to prepare. Please bear in mind that this is a small bit of advice, nothing extraordinary, focused on three elements I think most of us can relate to, especially if you are reading this on LinkedIn (or some other social media or blog platform):

• your household (may be your family, shared apartment, etc.);

• your neighborhood (could be your building, campus, or office space); and

• your community (town, district, etc.).

Much beyond that, it is often too hard for most people to engage or see, so without further ado, let me proceed.

Help Your Own Household

When you board an airplane and they go through the instructions on putting on your oxygen mask if the cabin loses pressure, the first thing they tell you is to put your mask on before assisting your children. In the same way, you need to take of yourself and your own household, before assisting others.

When I give presentations on emergency preparedness, I usually take a quick poll, by asking for a show of hands as to how many people have an emergency "Go-Bag" (or kit) at home, most often I get a few hands that go up, out of an audience between 20-40 people. This is very common, even among Emergency Managers (if I may call them out).

It only takes about an hour to identify what you need (and yes, that is a link to ready.gov a sentence back there). Having the requisite 3 days supply of food, water, medicines, and other supplies is going to go a long way to ensure you can ride out a major disruption from the next disaster; you can even have something to share with your neighbors if they are in need. More importantly, if you do lose your home, apartment, or some other dwelling, if you included your important documents, copy of licenses, insurance, etc., you can begin the process of recovery much more easily.

We need to recognize that there are households that may not have the means to prepare an emergency Go-Bag or kit, and for those households I say do what you can, even if it means keeping a couple of boxes of pasta and sauce or some cans of tuna, in order to last a day or so, before any disaster relief arrives. Get a simple flash light and extra batteries, and put them in a place you know you will find them.

While we are on this note, check the fire/smoke and carbon dioxide alarms in your home to ensure they are in working order and replace the batteries at least once a year (yes, I know what you may be thinking; supposed to be twice a year, but most people don't do it; or it has been a few years since they replaced that battery), so go ahead and set a schedule, and make sure to do it safely. See below:

Review your plan and practice your evacuation drills, where your rally point is (neighbor or family member who lives close by), and make sure everyone, including any care-givers, know the plan; and put that plan in your Go-Bag. In my household, I check that bag and review our plan as a family on Memorial Day Weekend and Labor Day Weekend.

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

First thing, make sure you are aware of the hazards in your neighborhood, the obvious ones are usually quite clear: danger from falling trees or tree limbs, in arid climates- wildfires, riverine or coastal flooding, wind damage, power outage, earthquake. Trimming trees back, ensuring storm drains are clear, clearing away dry and dead brush, and securing shelves and tall furniture in earthquake zones are just some of the simple measures that can be taken to mitigate some of the damage from natural hazards. In addition, putting in mitigation measures such as storm drainage away from the home, fixing gutters and drainpipes, and planting native trees and shrubs which are naturally fire resistant in warmer, arid climates (CalFire has an excellent home hardening webpage).

It's also a good idea to simply get to know your neighbors. We are very fortunate in our neighborhood as we have gotten to know most of our neighbors within about a 2-3 house radius of ours, a total of about 26 households. We know them personally, their children, in some cases their parents; we know which households have frail elderly and people with disabilities. In the last major Winter storm, I went to check on one of my elderly neighbors, cleared the snow from her sidewalk and driveway, and generally walked around the neighborhood for any fallen tree limbs and to clear fire hydrants of snow. Together with others on our street we moved tree limbs to the side, so snowplows could clear the snow more easily.

When we lost power two years ago, we stayed at a neighbor for a week (thanks @Rebecca_Dopp and Jeff!), until we got power back. This was a tremendously gracious act, one we would gladly offer to our neighbors in-kind. The point of this is that getting to know your neighbors and helping them out comes naturally when hazards force you out of your home. As I wrote in a previous article, social ties govern the success of community resilience to bounce back after a disaster.

Community

When you get above the neighborhood level, the connections become a little more complicated. A community is comprised of faith-based organizations (churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, etc.), community based organizations (Elks, Rotary Club, etc.), social action groups, K-12 sport leagues/teams (Cal Ripken, PLA, etc.) and adult leagues (basketball, tennis, softball, etc.) and, let's not forget, the local Board of Education, town council, police, fire, and EMS or local rescue squad, and volunteer groups, and local private companies to name just some of the organizations.

Besides the American Red Cross, which is recognized as the leader when it comes to disaster relief, and the Salvation Army, another major national organization with local teams is the Community Emergency Response Teams or CERT. CERT was started in Los Angeles in the 1980s to train local teams in basic emergency response tactics and techniques, with the understanding that the first people on the scene in a disaster situation are local people, usually not the police, fire fighters, or EMS technicians. CERTs can be an effective supplement to the local first response community (not a substitute), and I encourage people to join them. I have, and it has been a rewarding volunteer effort. I have also been witness to the marvelous volunteerism of CERT in NYC during hurricane Sandy. Thousands of CERT volunteers were deployed to help out in hurricane shelters during that emergency event, and I had the honor or working side by side with them in the same shelters serving our fellow citizens.

Having trained volunteers who know how to integrate into a combined response effort as well as to take the lead in managing other volunteers can be a force multiplier in any emergency situation when you need to grow a support network quickly.

Now the last item to address is the more thorny issue, and that is advocating for, funding, and building protections against the most common hazards that face a community: floods, fire, and wind. This translates into flood easements, barriers, dikes, and levees; clearing the ground and forest of combustibles, putting in fire breaks; and storm cellars (tornado safe room) in tornado prone areas (which is increasing steadily). It also means, much to the disappointment of the real estate and construction industry, not building in high risk zones and with high risk materials.

As we have seen in areas of Houston that were flooded during Hurricane Harvey and numerous homes around Durango, Colorado, consumed by some of the worst wildfires in 2018, communities need to make the hard choices to build well above the flood planes and outside of the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI).

So What, Now What?!

So, are you ready to get prepared? What are you waiting for? Get started today with where you are and with what you have. Preparedness for disaster begins one household at a time, and it begins with each of us. If you have questions, you can always give me a call.

Andrew Boyarsky is President of Pinnacle Performance Management, a business continuity and disaster recovery consultancy focusing on non-profits and universities. He is also a Clinical Associate Professor in the Management and Systems MS at NYU and in the Emergency Management Graduate Program at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a part of the City University of New York