Wherever I go to talk about the brain in disasters, I get asked one question in particular: What about children? How does a child’s brain respond to a disaster? Is it different than an adult’s brain?
Yes, very different. And the differences make children both better and worse at responding to disasters. It depends on the age of the child and the type of disaster, of course, along with a million other caveats. But here’s what we know:
* Before a disaster strikes—Young children have extremely plastic brains. They can learn faster than adults, making them…
IN AMERICA, THE PEOPLE IN CHARGE OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT spend millions of dollars a year holding training drills and tabletop exercises. All well and good. But when was the last time that you--the most important person on the scene--got invited?
Thanks to John Solomon for flagging last week’s 5-day nationwide drill in Israel as a model for a meaningful drill. Imagine: a drill that includes the entire population--and features surprise scenarios that require people to take action.…
Just did my first webinar of all time. I am still not sure how to explain what a webinar actually is, but I have to say, it was surprisingly pleasant. Basically, myself and two emergency managers California and Florida chatted with about 250 people about how to craft warnings (from hurricanes to wildfires to swine flu) that people will actually listen to.
Thanks to Governing Magazine for inviting me and to Visa Public Sector for sponsoring the show. I learned a lot from the listeners and my fellow panelists--Ron Lane, Emergency Services Director in San…
I was struck by a paragraph in a recent article by Natalie Angier in which she explains why we remember songs so much more easily than regular spoken words. Believe it or not, the answer goes a long way toward explaining why we tend to move so slowly in life-or-death situations.
The brain understands the world by detecting patterns:
“The brain has a strong propensity to organize information and perception in patterns, and music plays into that inclination,” said Michael Thaut, a professor of music and neuroscience at Colorado State…
I gave a speech at the State Department yesterday, and as always happens at these things, I came away much the wiser. In fact, I am starting to think that the main reason to do these speeches is the selfish one: because at the end, I just stand there sipping from a bottle of water and people walk up to tell me wondrous, strange, fascinating stories.
Anyway, after this speech for the Overseas Security Advisory Council, a man came up to me and told me about Jeff Cooper’s Colors. I neglected to ask…
I did an NPR Talk of the Nation segment today about what people take with them when they evacuate. The wildfires sweeping southern California have made the question urgent for thousands of people. But every year, for people all over America, evacuation has become a semi-annual ritual. Interestingly, people don’t usually pack very well on the first try. By the 2nd or 3rd disaster, though, they are experts in what to take and what to leave behind.
I never fail to be amazed at how much attitude matters. It sounds so squishy and lame, and yet… Again and again, research and real life prove that attitude is the single biggest determinant of almost everything.
I saw it in researching THE UNTHINKABLE (in studies and stories showing that people with a healthy attitude recover more fully from trauma), and you can see it again today in the New York Times. In a study mentioned on the front page, people who a positive attitude about aging lived an average of 7.5 years longer…
OK, so you may not have noticed between election mania and fiscal implosions, but National Preparedness Month is almost over. Part of the reason you may not have noticed, ironically, is that so many of the country’s preparedness soldiers were too busy dealing with actual hurricanes to do PR about future hurricanes.
Right before things got out of hand, the Red Cross was nice enough to come visit my office and chat with me about the book. You can see some of our conversation here.