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.
It got me thinking, and I figured…
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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…
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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.
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OK, so a smallpox epidemic is not something you want to visualize. How about a dirty bomb? Not so much.
But humor me for just a second. I want to share with you a report that a wise man sent to me earlier today. It came out a while ago, but for some reason I had never heard of it. It’s a really powerful study of the huge disconnect between emergency plans--and people’s real plans. A case study of what happens when emergency plans are not written with the public in mind.
The study found…
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Check out this quiz that columnist Tara Parker-Pope of the New York Times put together--based on THE UNTHINKABLE. I actually always wanted to do a quiz like this, but I never got around to it. So thanks, Tara! It’s a really lovely way to kill 10 minutes.
Topic for next book: Why does the human brain love quizzes so much? What is it about quizzes? And how is it related to our lust for Top 10 lists?
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Check out this NPR Talk of the Nation segment on the book from earlier today. The listener call-ins included Diane, who survived Katrina on a rooftop in New Orleans; Gary, who survived the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in California; Upton, who lived through the catastrophic break up of United flight 232 in Sioux City, Iowa; and Nina, who clung to a cement bench in Kalamazoo, MI, during the 1980 tornado.
Think of the wisdom contained in that collection of people. Here’s the enduring mystery: Why aren’t Diane and Gary and the rest…
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A number of you have emailed me to ask for the news-you-can-use side dish to the TIME adaptation of my book. Unfortunately, TIME did not put this piece of the story online. So I figured it might be fun to summarize it here--and elaborate a bit.
1. Attitude:
It turns out attitude really does matter. People who perform well in crises and recover well afterwards tend to have three underlying advantages: 1) They believe they can influence what happens to them. 2) They find meaningful purpose in life’s turmoil. 3)They are convinced…
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I did the Diane Rehm show today, which was a blast. (Rarely do you get an hour of media time to talk about anything, let alone an obsession that you’ve been researching for years.)
But I wanted to share with you what one listener sent in by email during the show. I wish I could have said it half as well:
From Jerry in O’Fallon, Missouri:
“I spent over 15 years training airline pilots and flight attendants in emergency procedures. Here’s what I know: Everyone has a moment of panic.…
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