America the Anxious to America the Prepared...
Updated document calls for civilian preparedness.
Someone from DHS must have been in one of my Maintaining a Culture of Preparedness talks.
We talk quite a bit about the differences in today's response culture compared to the response culture of years ago. In brief, we used to have fallout shelters, civil defense shelters...and what I call the "Civil Preparedness Mindset"...Mr. and Mrs. America stocked up of food and materials and perhaps had a shelter of some type in the basement or back yard. While in today our society practices the "Just in Time" approach to preparedness...instead of stock shelf-stable supplies, we'll run to the supermarket daily, rather than take any responsibility for our own safety and readiness we'll assume someone will be there to rescue us. Our society has traded in the preparedness mindset for Optimism Bias...the "it can't happen to me" crowd.
Having been vocal about the need to prepare our civilian populations in much the same fassion as we did during the Cold War era, I am pleased to see this updated version of Planning Guidance to Response to a Nuclear Detonation. This guide updates the January 2009 version and makes a compelling assertion that the civilian population should: a) be informed, b) prepared, and c) shelter in place during a nuclear event. See the video below. A movement from America the Anxious to America the Prepared.
All good points and topics we should continue to preach to the populations we serve. Furthermore, good things to remember for all-hazards preparedness...universal preparedness, if you will, not just nuclear events.
We've discussed various levels of readiness and planning most recently in our post on Survival Basics; taking simple preparations to survive being standed in your car. We've also taken on the large preparedness view; What if it did happen here? We've even been a bit catastrophic while In Search of Preparedness in America.
Get the original guidance document here.
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