September is National Preparedness Month here in the US. As we soon head into October, it’s a good opportunity to reflect on what we’ve accomplished during the month, or even elsewhere in the year. While National Preparedness Month is an important thing to mark and to remind us of how important it is to be prepared, over the past several years I’ve come to question our approaches to community preparedness. What are we doing that’s actually moving the needle of community preparedness in a positive direction? Flyers and presentations and preparedness kits aren’t doing it. While I can’t throw any particular numbers into the mix, I think most will agree that our return on investment is extremely low. Am I ready to throw all our efforts away and say it’s not making any difference at all? Of course not. Even one person walking away from a presentation who makes changes within their household to become better prepared is important. But what impact are we having overall?
Culture of preparedness is a buzz phrase used quite a bit over the last number of years. What is a culture of preparedness? An AI assisted Google search tells me that a culture of preparedness is ‘a system that emphasizes the importance of preparing for and responding to disasters, and that everyone has a role to play in doing so.’ Most agree that we don’t have a great culture of preparedness across much of the US (and many other nations) and that we need to improve our culture of preparedness. But how?
People love to throw that phrase into the mix of a discussion, claiming that improving the culture of preparedness will solve a lot of issues. They may very well be correct, but it’s about as effective as a doctor telling you that you will be fine from the tumor they found once a cure for cancer is discovered. Sure, the intent is good, but the statement isn’t helpful right now. We need to actually figure out HOW to improve our culture of preparedness. We also need to recognize that in all likelihood it will take more than one generation to actually realize the impacts of deliberate work toward improvement.
The time has come for us to stop talking about how our culture of preparedness needs improvement and to actually do something about it. There isn’t one particular answer or approach that will do this. Culture of preparedness is a whole community concept. We rightfully put a lot of time, effort, and money into ensuring that our responders (broad definition applied) are prepared, because they are the ones we rely on most. I’d say their culture of preparedness is decent (maybe a B-), but we can do a lot better. (If you think my assessment is off, please check out my annual reviews of the National Preparedness Report and let me know if you come to a different conclusion). There is much more to our community, however, than responders. Government administration, businesses, non-government organizations, and people themselves compose the majority of it, and unfortunately among these groups is where our culture of preparedness has the largest gaps.
As with most of my posts, I don’t actually have a solution. But I know what we are doing isn’t getting us to where we want to be. I think the solution, though, lies in studying people, communities, and organizations and determining why they behave and feel the way they do, and identifying methodologies, sticks, and carrots that can help attain an improved culture of preparedness over time. We must also ensure that we consider all facets of our communities, inclusive of gender identity, race, culture, income, citizenship status, and more. We need people who know and study such things to help guide us. The followers of Thomas Drabek. The Kathleen Tierneys* of the world. Sociologists. Anthropologists. Psychologists. Organizational psychologists.
A real, viable culture of preparedness, in the present time, is little more than a concept. We need to change our approach from using this as a buzz phrase in which everyone in the room nods their heads, to a goal which we make a deliberate effort toward attaining. A problem such as this is one where we can have a true union of academia and practice, with academics and researchers figuring out how to solve the problem and practitioners applying the solutions, with a feedback loop of continued study to identify and track the impacts made, showing not only the successes we (hopefully) attain, but also how we can continue to improve.
*Note: I don’t know Dr. Tierney personally and it is not my intent to throw her under the proverbial bus for such a project. I cite her because her writing on related topics is extremely insightful. I highly recommend Disasters: A Sociological Approach.
© 2024 Timothy Riecker, CEDP
The Contrarian Emergency Manager 