You Never Know...

When The Day Before Is The Day Before

FEMA has released a new promotional campaign trying to get folks to plan and prepare now, because you really never know when something might happen.  They say that you never know when the day before is the day before, meaning that you don't know today that a disaster might come tomorrow, so you need to be prepared anyway.  Now, I think FEMA is simplistic in what they suggest (get a 72 hour kit, make a plan and stay informed), but what they suggest is easily achievable by nearly everyone, and if everyone did do it, such preps would carry folks through the vast majority of disasters, so it does have some merit.

Anyway, what I particularly like about this promotion is the effort they make to have it hit home everywhere to do away with the "it can't happen here" mentality that we talked about here the other day.  They have a map of the US with a different date on each state.  If you click on a state, you get the date before something big and unexpected happened, and the story of that disaster.

For instance, in my own state of Virginia, it shows Sept. 17.  Clicking on it brings me the story of Sept. 18, 2003 when 20 inches of rains fell with 106 mph winds that knocked out power to 1.8 million people.  Here's the page so you can see what happened in your state and what the day before was the day before.  I think it is a good interactive exercise, especially to show those who say "it can't happen here."

Here's a link to the press release for the entire National Preparedness Month promotion.