Emergency Preparedness + Privilege

At our annual neighborhood pot-luck supper yesterday, things were going swimmingly (the finger-foods were less than bland and the conversation was more than mundane) when our Emergency Preparedness Liaison Officer (who takes his designated EPLO duties quite seriously) asked to spend a few minutes talking to us about the merits of the newly-devised CCPE (Chico Community Preparedness Endeavor). This involved distributing and then going over a 15-page packet of information (complete with Emergency Preparedness Checklist, Family Disaster Supplies Kit, Evacuation Planning Sheet, Sample Home Layout Plan for Essential Necessities Locators, and a series of reports on the horrors of Katrina). We were urged to keep a month's supply of non-perishable food and drinking water on hand at all times. Flashlights and candles, of course, were an absolute must. Ideally, we should all invest in our own back-up generators. With the world supplies of oil drying up and global temperatures rising, he calmly suggested, you can never be too sure anymore. Better to be actively proactive rather than passively reactive.

Make no mistake: our EPLO is a good neighbor and a responsible citizen. I think his work--and his message of caution--are admirable. Why, then, did I leave the block party in a deep funk?

Was it because I had been suitably sobered by his timely reminder of our fragility and vulnerability? Not really. Here in the Central Valley of northern California, we have no fear of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, or tsunamis. True, wildfires are a potential problem but they rarely come close to urban centers like Chico.

Was it because of the Katrina reminder? Yes, partially. After all, it is still harrowing to contemplate the images of corpses floating in floodwater that, at one point, submerged 80% of the city of New Orleans last September. For millions of residents along the Gulf Coast, the fabric of normal life was torn apart violently and irreversibly.

But the real reason for my melancholia, I think, is because I was suddenly alerted to my position of privilege living a relatively comfortable life, with a well-established daily routine, taking for granted my daily pleasures and perks. Imagine being shaken out of this comfort zone by a Katrina-like disaster. How would I cope? In fact, could I cope? Worse still (my melancholic mood was deepening now), imagine living in Beirut (Lebanon) or Nazareth (Israel) or Baghdad (Iraq) where just yesterday scores of innocent civilians were blown apart by explosives dropped from the sky or detonated from a nearby car. How does a family begin to move on from that kind of trauma?

The point of this essay is not to invite sympathy for having it so good. That would be indulging, I think, in a kind of narcissism that is sickening and self-defeating. Yet living a privileged life of security and relative comfort is surely not something that I should have to feel guilty about or apologize for. Perhaps the key question is: what am I going to do to ensure that those unfortunate enough to have suffered through a man-made or natural disaster can reclaim the comforts of their daily routines as quickly and humanely as possible?