Amanda Ripley Author of The Unthinkable

Four boys died when a tornado ripped through their camp in western Iowa this week. It was a terrible loss. But it was also an example of how reasonable acts of preparation can save lives.

The Boy Scouts take great pride in being prepared. It isn’t a sign of weakness or neurosis--the way preparedness is viewed in much of adult land. It is a sign of strength. And here is what it looks like:

On Tuesday, the Scouts held an emergency preparedness drill. On Wednesday, the storm rolled in. When a Scout leader spotted a funnel cloud churning toward the camp, he flipped on a siren, and the boys began to run for shelter. Unfortunately, as is often the case with tornadoes, they only had a few seconds of warning, and many boys only had time to run under picnic tables before the tornado hit.

Afterwards, the boys and men who were not hurt--and even some who were--immediately took action. They wrapped their shirts around wounds and applied gauze and ran for help.

“If it had to happen, it was good that it happened at a Boy Scouts camp,” one boy named Ethan later told NBC. “We were prepared. We knew that we had to place tourniquets on wounds that were bleeding too much. We had first Aid kits. We had everything. We knew about this. We knew how to do it. If it had happened anywhere else, there wouldn’t be that many people who knew.”

I have met small-town officials all over the country who insist their town is a terrorist target. “We have an interstate highway here,” they say, with a hard, ominous stare. “And an airport.” For a TIME story on why Wyoming gets more homeland security cash per capita than any other place, I listened to a room full of 22 nice, well-meaning Casper fire fighters say they would feel insulted by any suggestion that Casper (pop. 50,000) should get less homeland-security money. “No one can say Casper can’t be a terrorist target,” fire fighter Roy Buck told me.

So is being a terrorist target now part of the American dream? I’ve never been 100% sure if people are saying these things because they really believe it...or because they want the federal money that comes with high-risk status. But this USA Today story confirms that a few officials really, truly believe it. Some villages you’ve never heard of (West Baraboo, Wisc., pop. 1,248) are using their own residents’ money to pay for terrorism insurance to protect their water towers and police stations from the enemy.

Here’s the thing: yes, a rural attack by international terrorists would be frightening for Americans, and in that sense, it would be psychologically effective. But Americans are not the audience for groups like al Qaeda. Muslims around the world are the target demo, and they don’t get fired up about West Baraboo. (Sorry, I know this is hard to hear...) But major targets for these kinds of groups will almost certainly be places that people who have never been to America can effortlessly visualize: places like New York City, Washington, DC, Los Angeles.

But this yearning to be part of the action is actually really interesting. When did the threat of random violence against civilians become a badge of honor? How did vulnerability get confused with civic pride? Consider what West Baraboo village clerk Mary Klingenmeyer is saying when she tells USA Today: “We had quite a few outlying areas laughing at us,” Klingenmeyer said [about the decision to adopt terrorism insurance]. “Maybe we’ll have the last laugh.”

The last laugh? After your village has been attacked by terrorists, you’ll have the last laugh? Really? I’m guessing it wouldn’t actually be so supremely gratifying. Except for the terrorists, of course. Although it appears that in West Baraboo, at least, they have already won.

And now we pause to celebrate that most rare and precious of news: FEMA may be getting stronger. At least in some places.

I wouldn’t trust everyone on this, but I trust Eric Holdeman. Based in Seattle, Eric ran King County’s Office of Emergency
Management in Washington state for 11 years, and he is a reporter’s lifesaver: he knows a ton; he will tell you the truth; and if he doesn’t know the answer, he’ll send you to someone who does.

Anyway, Eric’s blog is a useful clearinghouse for news in emergency preparedness. And the other day, he tacked up this pretty swatch of hope (please forgive the emergency-ops jargon. That’s just how these guys talk.):

I got the following information from Garry Briese, Regional Administrator for FEMA Region VIII in Colorado. I had commented to him about the tornado that hit Colorado. He replied, “The tornado was impressive, but not nearly as destructive as the ones in Kansas and Iowa. Our 5-person State Support Team (SST) from R8 was in the state EOC within two hours of the impact and we launched a second team to Wyoming the next morning. On the initial helicopter fly-over that same afternoon, our SST Team Leader was on the helicopter with the Governor. Twenty-four hours after impact we had more than 50 FEMA on site doing communications (MERS) and preliminary damage assessment (IA & PA). Best of all, the Presidential Declaration was requested, processed here, sent to FEMA, sent to the WH [White House], and approved within 48 hours over the holiday weekend.”

I’ve been involved in many disaster response activities at the state and local level. The speed with which FEMA Region VIII responded and also the State of Colorado in requesting the disaster declaration is I think very impressive!

Maybe things are really getting better. Way to go FEMA!

An adaptation of the book is running in TIME this week. One of the many cool things about this is that TIME included a photograph of Kent Härstedt, who survived the sinking of the Estonia ferry in 1994. I had not photographed him for the book, though I wish I had. A very thoughtful, interesting guy who is now a member of Sweden’s parliament.

Also, the print edition includes a fetching news-you-can-use sidebar about 5 ways to boost your survival IQ. Always nice to have sparkly accessories next to your story, if I do say so myself. 

I was in the Los Angeles Airport this weekend when I caught the best headline I have seen in a while: “Hurricane High-Risk Areas Have Lost Residents.” My wheeling suitcase came to a screeching halt.

According to USA Today’s analysis (complete with rad roll-over map), the number of people who live in the most vulnerable areas of Florida, Texas, and the rest of the Gulf Coast has fallen slightly since 2000.

The steepest decline is in the places smashed flat by Hurricane Katrina, naturally. But even excluding those spots, these high-risk zones grew only about 6%--or about half the rate of safer places inland, the newspaper found.

What’s up? Can it possibly be that Americans are judging risk more accurately, after the beating we’ve taken in the current hurricane cycle?

No, Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute, tells USA Today. Those people are just responding to the housing crunch. But I’m not so sure. Call me crazy, but I think a handful of people in these areas might be getting tired of the annual rites that come with living in hurricane alley: sitting in evacuation traffic for hours with children and dogs, spending days at a time at friends’ houses, trying to be the perfect guest despite the total lack of privacy and snack food, and coming home to pick up the pieces.

The real test will come when the housing market recovers. Then we’ll see if an oceanfront condo is worth the suffering.