Volcanic Events of Importance

Though it may come as a surprise to many, 10 to 20 volcanic “events of impor­tance” occur globally every month.

On a recent consult­ing assign­ment, I learned that volcanic ash in the atmos­phere can cause real problems for airplane engines, and the airlines must balance safety and efficiency in response to these events. The goal from a safety perspec­tive is to avoid aircraft encoun­ters with volcanic ash. From the perspec­tive of efficiency, the  goal is to minimize re-routing of aircraft.

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Disaster Strikes When You Least Expect It

The night­mare in Haiti once again hammers home this age-old axiom.

How many more people will die in the future because of our compla­cency — in this country and elsewhere?

How many times do we have to witness such disas­ters only to find that once again lack of commu­ni­ca­tions is the great­est hindrance to rapid and accurate assess­ment of the impact? How many people could have been saved if commu­ni­ca­tions were avail­able to quickly obtain accurate situa­tional aware­ness and better coordi­nate the resources for search and rescue?

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Preparedness as a Gift

The holiday season, for many, is a time of gather­ing with family and friends. It’s a time when we share gifts, and as a prelude to the new year, it is also a time of reflec­tion. However, many through­out the world are not at peace, are not gather­ing with friends and family, are not sharing gifts. It is time we awaken to the fact that we are indeed in a new age — an age in which we need to stop think­ing just about ourselves and begin to care more about other people and indeed all living things.

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OODAkit FAQs

Here are the OODAkit FAQs. But if we missed your questions, please post it the comment field below so we can include it!

Never Forget Disaster while Enjoying Peace

Complacency turns mere emergen­cies into disas­ters. Much like taking the bless­ings of nature for granted has yielded a fragile environ­ment intol­er­ant of more abuse,  postponing disas­ter prepared­ness because it’s been awhile is like piling combustible materi­als in the direct path of a raging forest fire. It will burn out of control.

Do you ever wonder why most experts suggest stock­pil­ing 2 weeks of criti­cal supplies when, until recently, the recom­men­da­tion has been 3 days?