The Frequency of Disaster

In the midst of the current global crisis for COVID-19, I was reminded just how often we have found ourselves in Bug-in situations over the last decade. We have been personally impacted by 4 significant events in the last 12 years.

In 2018 a tornado ripped through a power distribution station in Ottawa knocked out power for the better part of a week. All our frozen food thawed, we were without internet and hot water for long enough to be worried. The limited communication and power made it difficult to know what was going on, or keep our phones charged.

In 2013 we were in Calgary for the flood of the century. My office was flooded and closed for several weeks when all of downtown Calgary was under several feet of water. Luckily our house was on high ground.

And back in 2008 we were in Vancouver when the power substation downtown exploded. This time as well, my office was impacted and shut down for a week.

These events that last long enough to outlast all our laptop batteries, or the normal week worth of food in the house are where it starts to get into the territory of an emergency scenario. And given just how often these events seem to come up, having some preparation is probably a good idea.

We’ve averaged one emergency scenario every 3 years, there’s no reason to believe that those are unusual odds to continue into the future.

Probably not a bad idea to have emergency preparation as part of an annual re-assessment calendar reminder.