Three Words to Improve Disaster Outcomes

If I could say just three words to prepare someone for disaster it would be these: Disasters change things. All of the reasons for not being prepared, and for not following emergency instructions in a disaster (too hard, too expensive, no need), are tied to those words.

If you don’t believe disasters change things, you assume that you can handle whatever happens, and any investment into handling that better is unnecessary. This is our normalcy bias at work. Normalcy bias makes us believe that it won’t happen to us, and that if it does it won’t be that bad. That if we dial 911, help will come and that our actions will always have the same results, regardless of the circumstances.

Normalcy bias is more than believing that the rain will stop before the river floods; it’s assuming that there is nothing but smooth pavement under the water on the road, and being sure that your car can make it through. It’s thinking that the warning is probably overblown, and that you have plenty of time to evacuate because you know how long the route will take. Normalcy bias is not understanding that disasters change things.

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