Episode-77- TSP Rewind – The Missed Lessons of Major Disasters
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Today is an episode of TSP Rewind, commercial free versions of past podcast episodes.
Today’s episode was originally, Episode-366- The Missed Lessons of Major Disasters and was first published on January 28th, 2010.
The following are the original show notes from that episode.
It seems there is always a disaster somewhere in the world. Right now eyes are on Haiti, over the last two decades we have had many. The LA Riots, The California Quake, Hurricanes Andrew, Ike, Rita and of course Katrina. Lesser publicized weather events like the Ft. Worth and Arlington Tornado (which we lived through), the Mississippi floods of the 90s, Tropical Storm Fay in Jacksonville and more.
Each time we hear how we have “learned” from the event and will do better next time, yet a lot of what we learn misses many of the real lessons. This will be the subject of today’s podcast.
Join me today as we discuss…
- More first responders per individual
- Biggest shortages are food, water and shelter
- Law and order will break down
- Law abiding citizens often become targets of law enforcement
- The media loves hardship, blame and is never part of the solution
- The size and scope of large disasters has actually be quite small
- Government and your fellow man will help but you may still be on your own
- Redundancy in your preparations is critical
- The disaster is not the biggest danger, the aftermath is
- The cause is less important then the removal of systems of support
- Money can become worthless, beer can be a currency
- Free societies are vulnerable
- What happens elsewhere can and very well may effect you
- It can happen where you live
- It is up to you, no matter the intentions of others
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When I used to work in the offshore oil exploration industry and we had to deal with a minor disaster (breaking a lot of expensive equipment, for instance), one of my managers used to joke that:
“The lesson learnt from this disaster is that the lessons were not learnt from the previous disasters”.
Re: mob mentality and breaking rules
A past guilty pleasure of mine was a kind of social experiment on airline flights that had just landed. Right after the plane has stopped pulling into the gate but before they turn off the seatbelt sign, I flicked the buckle on my seat belt so it makes that loud clack that sounds like unbuckling the belt. I always had at least a few people around who start unbuckling and getting up right after (sometimes more on international flights) 😉
I haven’t done it in awhile since I’ve already seen the results enough times (and I don’t want to give the flight crew any harder a time than necessary)…. though I might be tempted the next time I fly in a new country. Japan comes to mind, given some of the aspects of their culture and social norms.