Inside My Canoehead

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Every scholar, amateur and in-betweens have published lists of the coming year's threats and what is likely to happen. Crystal balls abound. This episode touches on the threats from a micro perspective, what is uncertainty and how will political and economic woes of the coming year affect your family life. We explore inflation, elections, restoring and supply chains to understand what the individual may face in the coming year. We close the episode with a clear lesson on how to understand your family's exposure to the risk, how to mitigate that risk through multiple lines of operations (income, food sources, etc..) and then, the most important suggestion - expand your community. There is nothing more important in the individual emergency preparedness space than building a strong social network with individuals and groups that may afford resources: economic, financial, human and most important - support.

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Research from across the discipline over the past twenty years has argued that the most influential and correlated variable to better post event outcomes is the sense of community and belonging. Whether found in hundred year old disasters in Japan, recent hurricanes in the USA, floods in Europe, earthquakes in Asia - all point to one singular variable that is an indicator of a household’s likelihood of recovering from a disaster and made whole. In a previous article, I wrote about the strategies to build a resilient community, one where it is not individual household fending for themselves - the translation of public sector preparedness communications, but an intertwined web of networks and social connections that move as a whole. A force greater than the hazard and far out sizing government, community is the centre of gravity for successful preparedness operations.
We’re in the slow burn phase of a paradigmatic shift in the preparedness sub-field of EM, the evidence is present, the experiments continue to confirm community as the most influential variable, but change has yet to come. As Khun writes, this often takes considerable periods of time, where stalwarts hold onto previous ideas and theories, often due to sunk cost fallacy, educational structures in the discipline and organizational norms that reinforce the existing framework. We need to continue to champion the idea that the unit of measure in preparedness is not the human or household, but the community. Embracing what the science informs is more difficult than simple acceptance, as it challenges that which has framed and governed our efforts for generations. The world has changed, innovation is present at our doorsteps, but many continue to hold onto a comfort, the known, the accepted, the simple path.
It begins with changing the unit of measure to community and embracing technologies, being innovative and understanding that the government, community organizations, the corporate sector and households are equal partners in success. One is not superior to the others, collectively the four sectors of society are greater than the sum of the parts.

We’re almost there...

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Being wrong, disproved or otherwise having our ideas challenged is uncomfortable. We prefer to exist in a world where we are surrounded by those who hold similar views, creating an echo chamber, missing some valued positions in society.
This is based in psychology, we believe in ourselves, we hold a place in an imagined hierarchy, we want to be seen as a positive force in the world. We want to speak to ideas and have everyone nod, we do not wish to have those ideas opening challenged and debated, or are we generally accepting of the idea that we may in fact be wrong, or at least have cracks in our argumentative foundation.
This belief in the need to be right, to be correct stymies our discourse, we listen to win, to defeat what others say, versus listen to understand why they believe what they do.
We do not consider or accept the possibility that our positions, some held for a significant period of time are false. We've lost the ability to fend for ourselves, to argue and lose. Maybe you and I are wrong, maybe our belief is incorrect - those statements are rarely held. We discuss.

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What we have all seen in the southeastern USA over the past week has been heart wrenching, whether here in Canada where I could do little more that financially support the NGO conducting operations, to the individuals charging into the chaos to provide relief and rescue those in peril. Evidence is clear that humans do not panic, they rally to the cause, step up to the occasion and do not turn to crime. Acts of violence and theft dramatically fall in disaster zones, though any instance of opportunistic theft is labelled as looting and broadcast across all channels as a representative behaviour of the local population. Abhorrent.

Misinformation is the intentional spreading of information one believes to be true but is in fact false, while disinformation is the international spreading of information the individual knows to be false, but does so anyway. Disasters include a breakdown of communication, where normal and stable networks are disrupted, sources of facts are interrupted and a void of available information seeds conspiracy theory. Dependable sources of accurate information are difficult to find and follow, this is a significant problem we are watching in the aftermath of hurricane Helene.
Institutional trust in the government has been on a steady decline, amplified in the pandemic and has shown little indication that statistical trends are returning to a growing public confidence in the government. FEMA is a federal government entity and therefore is subject to a mandate from the Stafford Act as well as other regulatory and policy frameworks. I have written extensively about the importance of building trust with the served population in times of peace and calm, building relationships with the affected population in advance of any disaster, so that when the event occurs, FEMA is seen as a trusted and valued addition to the response.
If EM is trying to establish themselves as a trusted source after the crisis begins, little success is likely. That requires dedicated pre-event population engagement over time, with all sectors of society acting together. We call it the community response council, the gathering for all parties in the area to discuss how they expect a response operation to be conducted, to establish priorities and to discuss who can do what for whom. Cooperation, coordination - not command and control. The secret sauce is just that, create the council in your area, be the champion and bring together all sectors of society. Leverage what has happened in Helene as an example of why a successful response operation requires a whole of community effort. When the trust is established it won't matter what mis and disinformation is present, residents will turn to their trusted sources for guidance. That is how you win, not by authority or title, but through engagement across society.

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Two years in and 100 episodes down, thanks to all the contributors, supporters and those who think this message matters. We chat about the "why" this podcast was created, the mess of the current preparedness landscape and the reasons why I think this channel is positioned to help. Plans for the future about the ebook, video course, consultancy and episodic continuation of the brand. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Buy Me A Coffee for daily preparedness tips. We will be publishing reels and TikTok videos in June, with the YouTube content focussing on preparations for outdoor adventure until July-August when we begin a series of detailed preparedness discussions.
Thank you for being here, it means a great deal.

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