The Christmas Storm Redux: 6 Lessons in Emergency Management

With winter soon upon us, and the Thanksgiving holiday seemingly a favorite target for Mother Nature, I thought now would be a good time to recap some of the emergency management lessons I’ve learned over the years, particularly from my experience responding to a severe localized winter storm here in western Washington early in my city management career.

A little background on that storm: between December 23 and 26, 1983 (an el Nino year, by the way) extreme low atmospheric pressure approaching western Washington from the Pacific met extreme high pressure east of the Cascade Range. This caused high velocity winds to flow from east to west through the mountain passes; near my city of Enumclaw, wind gusts exceeded 100 mph! At the same time, the temperature was near zero degrees Fahrenheit. The community lost electrical power and sustained severe property damage. At the time the city did not have a formal emergency response plan in place.

Here are the top takeaways I learned from going through that experience:

• Plan ahead. Since then I don’t take storm warnings lightly. Although an earthquake seems to be the most likely disaster threat from a regional perspective, you should have an emergency plan in place and adaptable to any contingency.
• Be prepared to do without outside help. If it’s a regional event, resources will be spread thin. Or, as we experienced, the localized nature of the event meant regional agencies were unaware (or disbelieving) and unprepared themselves. For years we’ve been told to be prepared as individuals for up to three days without help. More recent public service announcements recommend having seven to ten days worth of supplies on hand. That sounds more realistic based on what we see in the news.

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