Preparation and Planning

My dad was born in 1925, which made him part of the generation of Americans that went off to fight WWII. But my dad was near-sighted and had a neurological issue that caused his eyes to track in an odd, shaking manner, so the physicians rated him unfit for military service. Dad wanted to serve his country in some way and although his main vocation was teaching chemistry, for almost all his adult life he had a second job. That job was originally called “Civil Defense”, preparing for contingencies of war coming to American soil, and my dad’s job title was “Civil Defense Director”. I was a kid in the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War. Dad had a Geiger counter and we had emergency rations in the basement. Dad was the Civil Defense Director for Carlton County and it seemed like he knew everyone: the county sheriff, the local cops, all the fire crews, folks who worked at the power company, basically anyone who you would need to know if disaster hit. They ran through all kinds of “what if” scenarios.

I think it was in the 1970s when the job title formally changed from “Civil Defense Director” to “Director of Emergency Management”. This made sense, those of us in Carlton County were more likely to have to cope with wildfires, floods, or tornadoes than war. Dad still had the police-band and radios, still prepped for crisis, and ran through various disaster drills with various agencies.

Dad was good at dealing with bureaucracy and finding funding for equipment and supplies that would be useful in emergencies, things like generators and medical stockpiles. I have a distinct memory of some time in the 1970s when he got a couple of military surplus amphibious assault vehicles for the county, basically the kind of vehicles that transported soldiers to Omaha Beach on D-Day. “The Feds are basically giving these things away and we’ve got space in the county garage!” Dad explained.

Watching Dad, I learned the difference between preparation and planning. Preparation is making plans for things that might happen. Plans are are a fantasy projection of a future sequence of events. Plans virtually never go according to plan and a lot of what we stockpile in preparation, we never wind up needing.

Preparation is laying in the supplies, doing the drills, trying to learn from model scenarios when life isn’t on the line. Preparation and planning are both valuable, but you should never fall in love with your plan. The real situation isn’t going to be exactly like your plan. You will never be 100% prepared. You just want to optimize your chances of getting through whatever the hell is going to happen.

On June 19th & 20th of 2012, 7.25 inches of rain fell in 24 hours, causing major flooding in Carlton and southern St. Louis County in Northern Minnesota. Dad was on vacation in Colorado at the time. Things seldom go exactly as you planned. The Carlton County Sheriff was quoted as saying “Palmer Peterson spent his whole life planning for a disaster like this, and when it finally comes, he’s out of town!” The sheriff wasn’t mad, he just appreciated the irony. And I think the county finally got to use those surplus amphibious vehicles.