Disaster Preparedness Quotes

“Death doesn't bother me but murder makes me edgy, and my lack of weaponry suddenly felt like a potentially fatal mistake. If we got back to the hotel alive, I wasn't coming back here again without my knife and the baseball bat. And maybe a tank, if I could find one fast enough.”
― Seanan McGuire, Rosemary and Rue

“a great reason why a gloomy history may repeat itself is that we may have neglected what history did. When we neglect what history did, history visits us in the same cloth”
― Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

“Whether they are at an airline or at a command center, experts will err on the side of excluding the public, as we have seen. If they can avoid enrolling regular people in their emergency plans, they will. Life is easier that way, until something goes wrong.”
― Amanda Ripley, The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes—and Why

“And what about this. When we’re thrust into it, we anxious folk can often deal with the present really rather well. It’s worth remembering this. As real, present-moment disasters occur, we invariably cope, and often better than others. The day after no sleep, I get on with things. At funerals, or when I’ve fallen off my bike, or the time I had to attend to my grandmother when she stopped breathing, or whenever a major work disaster plays out leaving my team in a panic, I’m a picture of calm. Dad used to call me “the tower of strength” in such moments. I also don’t tend to have a lot of bog-standard fear (as opposed to anxiety). In fact, I relish real, present-moment fear and actively seek it out.”
― Sarah Wilson, First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Story About Anxiety

“I invite the reader to consider the possibility that we are now entering a period of hospice for ourselves and with one another. Never before in human history or in our own personal history has our full embodiment, the healing of the mind-body split, been as urgent as it is in this moment. Never before have we so desperately needed to reflect upon our lives and find meaning in them as we do now.”
― Carolyn Baker, Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse: Cultivating the Relationships We Need to Thrive

“What, then, is the soul of community? It is a desire to be connected with something greater than the egos of other people and the projects in which we might engage with them. Fundamentally, a successful human community is the unfolding of a spiritual dynamic. It cannot be contrived or made to happen. Rather, it erupts from our desire for the depths, and that desire is certain to constellate the shadow in ourselves and the other.”
― Carolyn Baker, Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse: Cultivating the Relationships We Need to Thrive

“Any relationship, no matter how fulfilling and restorative it may be, can always be enlivened and enriched. Regardless of how elated or deflated you feel about your work, what can you do to breathe new life into it—to make it more rewarding than it has ever been? Do you need to leave your current work and answer another calling? What is your spiritual employment, dear reader, carrier of so many gifts?”
― Carolyn Baker, Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse: Cultivating the Relationships We Need to Thrive

“A post-petroleum world will necessitate walking long distances and exerting much more physical energy to accomplish even routine tasks than we are now accustomed to. Most of our bodies in current time are not up to the task. Yet preparing the body for living in a collapsing world is one of the most fundamental of preparations. Although we may not be able to store vast quantities of food or water, may not have our homes or property equipped as much as we would prefer in preparation for collapse, and may not have learned all the skills we would like to master, becoming present in our bodies and keeping them healthy and fit are factors over which we have control.”
― Carolyn Baker, Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse: Cultivating the Relationships We Need to Thrive

“The extraction of deep wisdom can be done at any age, and if we are to love the time of our life, it must be. Imbedded within us is the deeper story we came to live, and the core issue at every age for any awakened human being is the extent to which we are living that story in the present moment.”
― Carolyn Baker, Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse: Cultivating the Relationships We Need to Thrive

“During the past thirteen billion years humanity has become an enormous presence on earth, as if it were an envelope surrounding the planet. All other species are now influenced by humanity, and humanity is literally determining the genome of the earth community. We affect how the rest of the planet survives—or not. The one notion that not only envelops but suffocates the planet is that of industrial growth, which inherently fosters the perspective of the earth as a resource rather than as a relationship we must cultivate. Humanity is now being challenged to replace the resource concept with a deeply emotional experience of the earth as a being with which we are related.”
― Carolyn Baker, Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse: Cultivating the Relationships We Need to Thrive

“For those of us who have come to believe that unless we are thinking we are wasting time, it may be challenging to simply linger with a beautiful sunset, an exquisite painting, or an arresting piece of music. The intellect often reacts to the seductions of beauty by attempting to recapture us.”
― Carolyn Baker, Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse: Cultivating the Relationships We Need to Thrive

“Industrial civilization has held us in a subhuman state all our lives, and we now have the opportunity to discover the powers of the universe coursing through us and our environment. Likewise, we have the extraordinary privilege as consciously self-aware humans of intentionally participating with those powers in an intimate, passionate, caring relationship with the universe.”
― Carolyn Baker, Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse: Cultivating the Relationships We Need to Thrive

“I believe that the Last Emergency has not arrived without reason, nor are we now moving into the throes of it by accident. As the bearers of conscious self-awareness on this planet, we have failed miserably thus far in recognizing our inextricable oneness with the universe. Whether we can refine this innate capacity in time to prevent the annihilation of the Earth—a travesty in which we have consciously and unconsciously colluded, is unknown. Nevertheless, in the remaining days of our presence here, we can love the Earth and we can love all its sentient beings.”
― Carolyn Baker, Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse: Cultivating the Relationships We Need to Thrive

“If you don't have the physical conditioning necessary to get your self out of trouble, the skills in this book won't do you much good.”
― Clint Emerson, 100 Deadly Skills: Survival Edition: The SEAL Operative's Guide to Surviving in the Wild and Being Prepared for Any Disaster

“Are we never to educate ourselves to foresee such dangers and to prevent them before they happen? All the evidence of history shows that laws unknown and unsuspected are being discovered day by day: as this knowledge accumulates for the use of man, is it not certain that the ability to see and destroy beforehand the threat of danger will be one of the privileges the whole world will utilise?”
― Lawrence Beesley, The Loss of the S. S. Titanic: Its Story and Its Lessons

“The hospital was a microcosm of these larger failures, with comprised physical infrastructure, compromised operating systems, and compromised individuals. And also instances of heroism. The scenario was familiar to students of mass disasters around the world. Systems always failed. The official response was always unconscionably slow. Coordination and communication were particularly bad. These were truths Americans had come to accept about other people's disasters. It was shocking to see the scenario play out at home.”
― Sheri Fink

“The worst part of being very well-prepared for a disaster is this: Now you start wanting that disaster to happen!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Humanitarian procurement for emergency response is spontaneous and often unplanned, because although we may plan for a catastrophe the when it may happen maybe a mystery! To address this, innovative solutions must include putting in place long term agreements (framework agreements), contracts for vendor consigned stocks, pre-positioning of stocks which would predictably be used for a broad range of responses and a cash based intervention option to allow people affected to have their dignity of choice.”
― Victor Manan Nyambala

“Your response to any major event will only be as good as you have planned”
― Claire Hunter, The Survivor’s Guide to Monster Storms: Practical Advice to Keep You and Your Family Safe

“Everyone in the city remembers the day the floodwater drained out, differently. Some were relieved, some were still in shock, some continued to look for loved ones, while others came home
to devastation. But for almost all of us it was heartbreak. The city wore its defeat for days and nights on end. For a week after the floods, on the footpaths outside most homes were stinking piles
of mattresses, pillows, quilts, cushions, straw mats, bedsheets and swollen rotting wood and food grains, and cars left open, even as the sun came down hard on us, making a mockery of it all.”
― Krupa Ge, Rivers Remember: The Shocking Truth of a Manmade Flood

“We Are Turkiye (The Sonnet)

Earthquake may shatter our houses,
But it can never shatter our hearts.
We shall rise from the rubble once again,
We shall build back against nature's curse.

But this time let us build back better,
By putting our faith in science not politics.
We could've averted such cataclysmic terror,
Had we heeded the warnings of scientists.

A scientist works to preserve life,
Politician plays publicity with death.
Given the choice between the two,
Listen to the scientist without wait.

Why do people have to die
for us to open our eyes!
If we still fail to heed reason,
nothing will stop the funeral cries.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo

“Why do people have to die for us to open our eyes! If we still fail to heed reason, nothing will stop the funeral cries.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo

“A scientist works to preserve life, Politician plays publicity with death.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo

“Based on decades-long work in the field of disaster response, my biggest takeaway is simple: Preparedness is not Paranoia!”
― Edward Minyard, Complacency: One Man's Story

“The world we live in today is a complex tapestry of interwoven challenges and opportunities. As we collectively face the reality of an ever-evolving global landscape, the significance of preparedness, adaptability, and resilience has never been more apparent. It is within this context that “Complacency” was born—a story that seeks to shed light on the fragile balance between security and vulnerability, and the consequences of inaction in the face of looming threats.”
― Edward Minyard, Complacency: One Man's Story

“One or two years of drought, disease or danger of any kind should not be your doom. You should be able to count your family on your fingertips and be able to save each and everyone from the deluge.”
― Anuradha Bhattacharyya, Light Inspired

“Every politician I talk to seems to say the same thing: "Now is not the time to point fingers." Spin doctors even come up with the term blame game. "I'm not going to play the blame game," they say, dismissing you when you ask for answers, for the names of officials who made key decisions. I notice that some reporters start using the term too. I can't understand why. Demanding accountability is no game, and there's nothing wrong with trying to understand who made mistakes, who failed. If no one is held accountable for their decisions, for their actions, all of this will happen again. Not one person has yet to stand up and admit wrongdoing. No politician, no bureaucrat, has admitted a specific mistake. Some have made blanket statements, saying they accept responsibility for whatever went wrong. But that's not good enough. We need to know specifics. What was done wrong? What were the mistakes? I ask any official I can. No one will answer. The only "mistakes" they admit to are actually veiled criticisms of others. The mayor should have declared a mandatory evacuation on Saturday, instead of waiting until Sunday. Precious hours were lost. The governor could have done that as well, but didn't. They could have moved hundreds of city buses and local school buses to higher ground and used them to evacuate the nearly one hundred thousand residents who had no access to private transportation. They didn't. There were plenty of mistakes to go around. I just want someone to admit to them.”
― Anderson Cooper, Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival

“Where there is a disaster, there is definitely negligence, unpreparedness; where there is negligence, unpreparedness, there is crime, and where there is crime, there is also the culprit!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“The best security is not to tell anyone you have it.”
― James Rickards, MoneyGPT: AI and the Threat to the Global Economy

“Here in the US we used to go on about our "First World problems." Nobody's pretending folks wouldn't be worse off if a storm like Luna had made landfall in Dhaka or Lagos. But the point is, it hit here, twice in ten days. And when the choice is between nothing and something, most folks will settle for a tent and three squares any day. Situation like that, your so-called First World gets real small, real fast.”
― Bruce Holsinger, The Displacements