EMERGENCY RISK REDUCTION

In the great scheme of life, I’ve come to realize that I know little about emergency preparedness. And, although a Christian, even less about religion. This may be my only blog that intersects these two, so please bear with me. I work in risk and emergency management.  Cycles of emergencies or disasters are well documented…i.e., daily, weekly, monthly, yearly.  For instance, we all know that around a full moon, human behavior becomes a bit more bizarre, and leads to more hospital visits (ask any emergency room staffer!) Another example is that auto driving fatalities are highest in August, on a Saturday, and between 5-7PM. This statistic may sound reasonable (i.e., driver habits, such as drinking, distractions) but I always assumed more accidents happened on a snowy January night! The same cycle is true for natural disasters, which of course can be seasonal, such as floods, tornados, hurricanes, and avalanches.

There are other cycles that sometimes defy understanding. Consider the ‘Shmita’.  Maybe you’ve heard of the “Year of Jubilee”, which was the year of ‘debt forgiveness’ in the Jewish tradition. It is linked to the Judeo-Christian command by God to ‘rest’ on multiples of seven (beginning with the Sabbath day of the week), as written in the Jewish Torah and Christian Old Testament. There is little written about the seventh ‘Shmita’ year being observed, but should it have been ignored? Let’s fast-forward about 3000 years.  A look at major events during a few past decades, and impacts on world economics in the approximate cycle of ‘sevens’ is eye-opening:

• 1979-1980 Shmita Year – U.S. and global recession.
• 1986-1987 Shmita Year – 33% U.S. Stock market value wiped out.
• 1993-1994 Shmita Year – Bond market crash.
• 2000-2001 Shmita Year – 37% U.S. stock market value wiped out. 9/11 disaster and Global recession.
• 2007-2008 Shmita Year – 50% U.S. Stock market value wiped out. Real estate crash. Global recession.
• 2014-2015 Shmita Year – ????

Pretty amazing, huh? I am not predicting something catastrophic is going to happen, but there seems to be a trend here. Some argue that ‘shmita’ only applies to the Jewish people. Maybe, but even if so, it probably would impact the shrinking globe, and us. It’s little wonder why those mid-eastern events with Iran, Iraq, and Israel are consistently in the news.  Or maybe events just happen to wax and wane in cycle — cycles of seven, without any religious connotation. This may be true, but should we still not consider 2015 as part of this trend, possibly an eventful year, and prepare for it!

More specifically, this Shmita Year ends September 2015, or to be exact, on Sept 13. Historically, most activities seem to happen at the end of Shmita, not during. I’m clearly not saying a catastrophe will occur on Sept 13, or even in the month, or even in 2015-16, but we might keep our eyes open to events between now and, say, the end of the year. Events that might make us glad that we’ve been prudent with some emergency preparedness. Let’s consider it a good excuse! And hey, if we’re wrong and nothing happens (and I truly hope it doesn’t!), what have we lost? We’ve revisited our Grab-and-go kits. We have updated our supplies for sheltering-in-place.  We have reviewed our family responses to various types of emergencies. The result is that we are generally more prepared, can sleep a little easier, and be thankful to a God, who gave us this “day of rest” — so we can rest in it, and in that Creator.

Thanks for reading.