Baby It’s Cold Inside
When we were making the documentary film The Last House Standing, we focused on how unprepared people were for hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, and earthquakes. This past week has shown us something equally as bad--ice and snow in places that don’t usually get ice and snow. Almost the entire state of Texas has been paralyzed by a major winter storm. Everything goes out the window when people lose essential services like power and water. For many it’s a deadly situation.
I lived in Texas for 18 years and I still follow the weather. My wife and I were talking a week before the storm about how cold it was going to get there and how glad we were that we didn’t have to deal with it. So the bad weather shouldn’t have caught people completely off guard. As my son who lives in Austin told me, it had snowed a month earlier and it wasn’t a big deal, that tends to make people think it won’t be a problem this time either. The problems the snow and ice created in Texas are very similar to after a hurricane. Roads not drivable, power out for several days, long lines for food and gas. As we’ve talked to our friends in Texas they’ve shared stories about what they were doing to survive without heat. Many have no firewood, no power, no way to cook food or even have a hot cup of coffee.
In The Last House Standing disaster expert Henk Ovink says, “What happens after a disaster is that everything that is vulnerable falls apart. All of a sudden you see your vulnerability exposed massively.” Ovink says communities need to use the disaster to make a plan that has them better prepared for the next one. If anything, it exposes the “it won’t happen to us” mentality. The power grid in Texas is a mess, and it’s going to need to be addressed. All the people suffering as result means everyone needs to do something, so they aren’t helplessly waiting for power companies and government officials to solve their problems. But how many people will actually do something going forward? It’s human nature take a deep breath after a disaster, get your life back in order, and then move on without addressing the problems for next time.
We have links to resources on our website like ready.gov that will help you prepare for the next winter disaster. When you hear a storm is coming, don’t wait until the last minute or gamble that it will miss you. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people in Texas as we hope for a speedy recovery. Once again, a major disaster highlights something we all need to be aware of. As Panama City radio personality Keith Kramer says in our film, “When it's over, you are the one that's gonna be responsible to cover your ass.”