• What is a disaster?
  A disaster is a situation in which your needs exceed your resources. Wildfires, earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes are all specific types of disasters (known as incidents) but they are all really the same thing: a situation in which the resources you can bring to bear aren’t sufficient to maintain the normal processes of your daily life.

 

• What is a catastrophe?
  The only difference between a disaster and a catastrophe is scale. Where a disaster is a situation in which your needs exceed your resources, a catastrophe is a situation in which your needs exceed any possible ability to respond. Catastrophes can be disasters that get out of hand, such as a flood that could have been initially mitigated by sandbagging, thereby preventing a levee or dam bursting that caused cascading floods downstream. Catastrophes can also be disasters that are so big that you can’t do anything about them even though you know what needs to be done. For example, there were several times during the 2007 Southern California wildfires that a shift in the wind would have started new fires in Foothill Ranch, setting fire to a couple dozen miles of dense houses and auto dealerships, which would have proceeded unabated through a large part of Orange County. The magnitude of the blaze and the number of people needing evacuation would have made any meaningful attempt to fight the fire impossible with the available resources.

 

• What is a critical infrastructure?
  A critical infrastructure is a physical structure, a system, or a facility that is essential to the continuing operation of a community or a society. The Department of Homeland Security has identified 18 critical infrastructures that are necessary for the basic functions of society in the United States:

* agriculture and food

* banking & finance

* chemical industry

* commercial facilities

* commercial nuclear industry

* critical manufacturing

* dams

* defense industry

* drinking water & reservoirs

* emergency Services/ EMS

* energy/power

* government facilities

* healthcare & public health

* information technology

* monuments & icons

* shipping industry (air, land, water)

* telecommunications

* transportation (air, land, water)

 

High Alert International is dedicated to empowering individuals, families, businesses, and communities to be disaster-ready. Along with its six subsidiary companies, High Alert International provides disaster preparedness planning, education, response, training, and consulting services to all of these 18 critical infrastructure industries.

 

• What is mitigation?
  Mitigation is any process that reduces, limits, or otherwise lessens the negative effects of a disaster. Mitigation can occur before a disaster (such as cutting back brush to prevent wildfires spreading), during a disaster (such as adding sandbags to a temporary levee in a flood), or even after (such as providing debris clean-up after a quake to prevent additional subsidence or fires).

 

• What is a Go-Pak?
  A Go-Pak is a knapsack or shoulder bag that contains food and water for at least 3 days, basic medical supplies, essential survival tools (such as a pocket knife and a flashlight), clothing, and personal information, ID, and important papers. The goal is to be able to grab the family’s Go-Paks and literally be out the door and in the car (or sheltering in place) within 30 seconds. Every family member should have their own Go-Pak, even if someone else will be carrying it for them in an emergency.

 

• What is acceptable risk?
  Acceptable risk is the potential loss or exposure to potential damage a community considers acceptable. Acceptable risk is usually based on a return-on-investment calculation: for example, it may be possible to make every structure in an earthquake zone quakeproof for a 7.5 quake, but the ROI on doing this would be prohibitive. The acceptable risk in this example is the number of structures that might be damaged before they can be retrofitted or replaced weighed against the likelihood of a 7.5 quake happening in a given period.

 

• What is business continuity planning?
  Business continuity planning is planning for business-critical, disaster, and emergency situations that may disrupt the normal operations in a business, and developing workarounds, alternatives, and temporary arrangements that allow the business to continue its primary functions for delivering products and services, generating revenue, and supporting its customers.

 

• What is an Incident Command System
  An Incident Command System (ICS) is a standardized set of procedures and organizational structure for dealing with emergencies of any size. Because ICSes have a relatively standard structure and operating style, it’s easy for people from different companies, teams, or agencies to work together in the same ICS because everyone has a good idea of how they need to work together. As a result, ICSes are scalable: they can be used to respond to small problems or big ones. High Alert operates using an incident command system. 

 

• What is sheltering in place?
  Sheltering in place is taking shelter where you are instead of evacuating to a different area or a public shelter. Sheltering in place is more effective for some disasters than others: for example, a hurricane may be something you can prepare your house for well enough to ride out the winds and rain there, but a wildfire is likely to consume everything in its path and you should leave if the fire gets too close.