'Be prepared,' says Seaford survivalist

SEAFORD -- It's easy to tell which house Joseph Parish lives in. The small, camouflage-painted van in his driveway kind of gives it away.

The van is Parish's "bug-out vehicle" -- part of his plan to be prepared to deal with disasters, be they natural or man-made. He also has a safe room stocked with food and other supplies.

"It's to the point where you can't rely on the government to help you out," said Parish, 59, a U.S. Air Force veteran. "We saw that in New Orleans -- you have to learn to help yourself."

People such as Parish, who runs a Web site on survival and preparedness, are in the vast minority, emergency officials and experts say -- even in areas susceptible to storms or other natural disasters.

"Some of the mindset is it's not going to happen to them," said Joe Thomas, Sussex County's emergency operations director.

Interest in preparedness typically surges after major disasters, such as the 9/11 attacks and hurricanes Katrina and Rita, said Rosanne Pack, spokeswoman for the Delaware Emergency Management Agency.

But as time goes by, that widespread focus on getting ready tends to wane.

"They are not as interested, they are not as concerned," Pack said of the people DEMA encounters through its outreach efforts, such as booths at the Delaware State Fair in Harrington and Nanticoke Riverfest in Seaford.

The agency casts a wide net with a corps of trained volunteers, mostly seniors, who deliver presentations across the state on preparedness kits and evacuation plans. Its literature and materials also are translated into Spanish.

To people such as Parish and author Amanda Ripley, "getting ready" goes beyond assembling items into a backpack and studying routes on a map. It involves changing the way people think about disaster situations.

Ripley, a journalist for Time magazine, studied how ordinary people respond to emergency situations -- the 9/11 attacks, deadly fires, airplane crashes -- in her new book, "The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes -- and Why."

She said many longtime New Orleans residents who stayed during Katrina relied more on their personal experience than objective factors.

"We do have blind spots for certain kinds of modern risk," Ripley said. "The people who lived through [hurricanes] Betsy and Camille overestimated their houses, their homes' strength and their own strength."

She said preparedness efforts -- even simple ones -- can dramatically help people in an emergency by boosting their confidence.

Pointing to the June tragedy at a Boy Scout camp in Iowa, where a tornado killed four Scouts, Ripley said the reactions of the boys who helped their comrades will likely help them recover from the trauma.

"They immediately jumped into action -- had first aid supplies, they knew first aid," she said. "They were able in most cases to do something even as their friends lay hurt and dying, in some cases."

Survivors of disasters often talk about how a community banded together in the aftermath, but Parish said readiness efforts can help bring people together before tragedy strikes.

"I'd love to see communities and neighbors set up something similar to a crime watch, where neighbors rely on each other," he said.

For Parish, preparedness means learning as much as he can about basic skills, including first aid and canning and dehydrating food.

He looks beyond the 72-hour emergency kit recommendations from the government to the worst-case scenario -- breakdowns in communication, transportation, law enforcement.

Parish knows he's been the subject of some ridicule -- "My kids were laughing at me" for his Y2K preparations -- but doesn't see any other way.

"If I had a problem, I was going to at least live in comfort," he said, reflecting on the canned lobster he stocked away back in 1999.

Pack said DEMA knows that most people won't be prepared, and takes that into account in developing its emergency plans.

"We have to operate with the understanding that most people do not have an emergency kit," she said.

In Delaware, with its susceptibility to flooding and damage from a hurricane, officials try to get residents to think about leaving a danger zone well in advance of a formal evacuation order.

"Evacuation is huge," Pack said. "This is why we say to the public, 'You are partner No. 1 on this team -- please pay attention to monitor whether something is coming.' "

Ripley said most emergency experts realize that people will be on their own in big disasters, but wish it were otherwise.

"They want very much for regular people to take more of an active role," she said.

Pack said parents of young children are among the most interested in DEMA's outreach efforts, while older, longtime residents are a bit more resistant to leave.

"It's always something that we have to overcome and hope that people can understand that anything can happen anywhere," Pack said.

Thomas worries that widespread complacency will hurt Delaware when a disaster does strike.

"There's going to be a hesitation with hearing our warnings," he said. "People think it's not going to happen."

ON THE WEB

For more information on emergency preparedness and readiness:

• U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Ready Campaign: www.ready.gov

• Delaware Emergency Management Agency: http://dema.delaware.gov

• DelMarVa Survival Training -- Joe Parish's site: www.survival-training.info

Contact Dan Shortridge at 856-7373 or dshortridge@delawareonline.com.

Article originally appeared on: http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008808110343