[EAS] Preparedness and Survival Generalities

[Botterell, Arthur@CalOES]

See, that in itself is a nice articulation of the rural perspective... "the problem with the cities is that they don't realize they should be more like us."   (And no, if we look at actual data we find that folks in emergencies, urban and rural alike, tend NOT to become more individualistic.  In actuality, they become more cooperative and other-oriented.  In the country they tend not to come in as direct contact with their neighbors' plights, maybe.)

City folks tend to think in terms of a cooperative pool of risks and resources, of interpersonal give and take.  An LA deputy fire chief some years ago made a video in which he showed off water barrels he had buried in his back yard.  His comment was that in an emergency he'd have enough water to trade for anything else he needed.  Urbanites tend to assume, based on experience, that somebody nearby will have some of anything, so it's not necessary (and that's good 'cause it ain't cheap) for every household to maintain its own complete cache.  It's a bit of a leap of faith, but it's how city-dwellers learn to survive.

I mentioned population density, but it's really more a matter of physical inter-personal distances, and the relative safety/expense of travel.  Point is, the "every man for himself" frontier ethos makes as little sense to a seasoned urbanite as the "leave it to the professionals" approach makes to country folk.

Frankly I think a lot of the reason folks get preachy about the rural worldview is that it seems (and is) much simpler than the continual collaboration of city life.  But that's not a good reason to delude ourselves that the problems or the solutions are the same in both environments.

I agree that we need to work harder on building risk mitigation and preparedness into the urban world.  But I'd say that largely because we've neglected urban-relevant emergency planning because we preferred to work in an imaginary world of universal rurality.

Not that I have any strong feelings on the subject! ;-)

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: EAS [mailto:eas-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of Mike McCarthy

If anything, being urbanized desensitizes the reality they need to be as well, if not more prepared than their rural brethren who by their very nature tend to stock more staples and supplies than space constrained urbanites and suburbanites. Especially those in apartments and condo's.
Never mind the sustaining efforts needed to survive are more acute on a more massive scale in a densely developed area. However, the response may not meet that need and it might be everyone for themselves for a period of time.

In an emergency, everyone (be it solo or family unit) is an individualist.
They are humans without connotation of origination.

MM