Snow

• 2/12/2010
• Author: Kristine Miller
• Category: EC News Blog
• 13945 Views
• 0 Comments
• 

Snow. My Wisconsin-bred memories of it include howling all-nighters, driving pellets lashing our faces as we exited school early, and after the storm, towering mounds at street corners—so high you had to tie a red rag on your car antenna so other drivers could see you. Here in Chicago, folks talk about the blizzard of ’67, when the city virtually shut down and people were stranded—or trudged home from the Loop all the way to the ’burbs on miles of snow-packed silent streets.

But none of this really begins to compare with what the people of Washington DC and the whole eastern seaboard have just experienced as twin snow storms dumped—and dumped again—shutting down even the government for four days in a row.

And the hospitals? I’m sure that every emergency management planner had included in their Hazard Vulnerability Analysis (HVA) all the disasters likely to hit their area. But a snowstorm? Of this proportion?

It just underlines the need to include in your HVA the likely disasters, yes. But don’t forget the less likely ones—especially those that might fall into that “escalating disaster” category. Emergency preparedness means being ready for those, too.