Preparing to make good decisions

It's hard to think about much but Hurricane Sandy right now, in terms of disaster preparedness.

This has been growing on me. Initially, people were only sounding interested or worried about inconvenience, and I hope they're right. Cancelling Halloween activities seems tragic, but it only is in the absence of a high death toll or losing your home. It's that whole perspective thing again.

It is helping to crystallize my thoughts a lot in terms of blog posts that should be happening: emergency plans, 72-hour kits, water safety, evacuation, and food storage. For anyone on the East Coast, though, it's a little late to think about those things. They have probably already done what they need to do, or decided not to do it.

So today is just about making good decisions. All of these memories are coming back about things that did or did not happen. I remember reading one daughter's account of losing her father during Hurricane Katrina. He felt like he did not need to evacuate, and right before phones went out he sounded like he was having some doubts, but it was too late then, and he was gone. I remember a :Leonard Pitts column about a different storm where they decided to ride it out, and ended up regretting it, because it was a lot worse than they expected it to be, but they did all emerge with their lives.

Also, I am thinking about how many people give no credence to climate science, so apparently these gradually worsening storms and droughts and changes in seasons are all big coincidences, while at the same time scientists in Italy have just been convicted of not accurately predicting an earthquake, and it makes one worry about the likelihood of people making good decisions.

So, just for the record, disaster prediction is not as accurate as would be nice, but there are things they can know remarkably well, and evacuation recommendations aren't made lightly. I mean, there are a lot of things that are worth dying for, but refusal to listen to people who probably do know is not a good one, and thrill-seeking probably isn't worth it either.

As we go over the content of the next few weeks, here is one of the greatest recommendations for advance preparation: having less to worry about.

If you need to analyze data, and make a good decision, and maybe need to be feeling some guidance, the less clutter you have in your brain the better. So if you already have three days worth of supplies packed and portable, that's huge. If you have water storage, that's big. If you have an emergency plan and you know exactly where you can go when  you need to evacuate, that really reduces the stress.

One of the pictures I saw from the East is empty shelves in a store, and of course, that happens all the time. But I remember the time when our regular shopping night was before a predicted storm, and they were out of a lot of things, but it didn't really matter because we were really well-supplied, and if the storm had hit earlier and we had not been able to make it to the store at all, it wouldn't have mattered. That feels good. It feels safer, and it means you can help others.

That's priceless.