Personal Emergency and Disaster Planning Center

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About Telefonica USA

Telefónica USA based in Miami, Florida, is a leading provider of global corporate communications and managed data center and IT services. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Telefonica Group <NYSE: TEF>, the worlds leading operator in the Spanish and Portuguese speaking markets, serving more than 186 million customers in the 19 countries were it operates. Its activities are centered mainly on the fixed and mobile telephony business, with special focus on broadband services for both residential and business consumers. For more information visit: www.us.telefonica.com.

FOREWORD

Every year, the Atlantic Basin and its environment produce tropical weather systems capable of enormous destructive force.  These systems such as tropical cyclones or hurricanes travel at a deliberate pace throughout the Atlantic ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Often they make landfall in populated areas across the region including the Southeast US during June through November. Areas that may be affected include: the Texas/ Mexico border at Brownsville, Texas; the Gulf of Mexico; New Orleans and Mobile; the Florida Keys and the Caribbean basin;  the coast of Florida and the Bahamas; Georgia and the Carolinas; Bermuda; Chesapeake Bay; Delaware Bay; New York and Long Island; Boston; Cape Cod; in fact, all the way to Maine. Hurricane season is share through most of the USA.

While we love the coastal majesty of our region and the lifestyle it affords, many of us have not experienced firsthand the power and the heartache that these monster storms can bring our way.  To a person, we always believe that we are prepared to handle whatever a storm might bring.  As they get closer and closer, we start to become unsure. To a person we may find just how helpless we can feel in the midst of hours of pounding destruction, and even more helpless in the hours, and days, and months, even years of the aftermath. 

It is for this reason that this guide was developed. We hope that it provides a message and the tools to motivate you to act now for the sake of yourself and your family or your employees; to prepare and protect them the best way possible, along with your property, from the most awful experience you may ever encounter.

Over the years, many people have casually approached the preparedness notion.  They argue that they have experienced many hurricanes, and that they are no big deal.  Besides, they argue, it is a lot of work, time, and money that they would just as soon use their funds elsewhere. In almost every case, these people have not experienced a dead on, direct hit from a hurricane, and they usually make these decisions from their experience on the fringes or the “outer bands”.

Ask anyone who has taken a storm head on, and you will hear a different story entirely. Their story will usually start with “This is the most terrible thing in my life.”, or “I thank God that I am simply alive, I have prayed and prayed.”  The emotional and physical toll of a raging hurricane is nothing short of life changing and yes, life threatening.

One police officer in Miami-Dade County, Florida, who survived Hurricane Andrew in South Florida during August 1992, put it this way in a private reflective moment:  “I have been shot at, and I have had to shoot back.  I thought I had seen the worst of situations in my career.  Nothing…, nothing has ever gotten to me this much.  I thought we were going to die.”  With tears welling in his eyes, he went on, “I am ashamed to say that I thought I was prepared.  I had no idea what this would do to my family and my friends, let alone my house and property.”

Then there are the hilarious historians among us, “Oh I don’t worry at all.  We have not had a hurricane here for sometime now.  I think the last one was probably 28 or 30 years ago.  I think the weather patterns keep them away from here.  We feel perfectly safe.”  Tell that to Floridians in the 2004 and 2005 seasons, who managed through multiple major hurricanes in less than 90 days each season, dissecting the state wreaking havoc in every quarter.  At one point in Florida, during August and September of 2004, it became nearly impossible to find an interstate road sign in many parts of the state to tell you where you were, or for that matter where you were going.  Still the self-proclaimed historians were pontificating.  “Oh this was just an aberration in the pattern. We are good now for a while.”  The folks in Punta Gorda, Florida or Gulf Shores, Alabama, in 2004 were not laughing or buying it. Nor were the Midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, who before the onslaught of Hurricane Isabel in 2003, found themselves building sandbag barriers at the entrances to the buildings of their age-old institution only to be rewarded with massive flooding throughout their little piece of land along the magnificent Severn River. Ask folks in Charleston, South Carolina or those along the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Ask the kind people in Biloxi, Mississippi about Hurricane Camille or Katrina. You will not hear “no big deal”.  You are more likely to hear chilling stories of hardship and survival.  In 2005, we experienced a record-breaking season of 28 named storms including Katrina and its devastating effect on New Orleans, Biloxi and the surrounding metropolitan areas.

It is not an exaggeration to say that most of the population in the coastal and lowland regions of the United States has not experienced the insatiable appetite and horror of a hurricane during their lifetime.  Moreover, as such, it is understandable why most people do not place a premium on planning or preparedness for something they cannot fully understand or appreciate, let alone for something that may or may not happen.  Risk is in the mind of the beholder. If no major risk is perceived, then no problem.

All of us have seen national TV reporters doing “windblown rain slicker” reporting in the face of hurricane winds, dramatically beaming into our TV sets the demonstrable power of such storms.  While they are performing, we start to learn a little about destructive wind force, and storm surge, and flooding.  However, these reports cannot depict the totality of the experience of those affected in that moment. Those in the storm cannot see the TV in the first place.  The power was most likely lost hours ago, and they are huddled together in their homes or shelters waiting for passage of the ravaging hurricane. During all of this, wishing privately they had sought safer ground. A battery-powered radio may give them some contact with the outside and a sense of time and activity from a local weatherperson who they will come to know on a first name basis. At some point during a violent storm, advice for survival becomes a live reporters’ most frequent request and most emotional and terrifying challenge.

The television networks cannot broadcast the full experience of this terror, nor can they adequately communicate destruction on a mammoth scale or the horrors of the immediate aftermath. The news tends to wane over time when the storm has passed and the shock and emotion of victims migrates to the necessity of survival and recovery.  We do not see the totality of the sweat and tears and human toll.  We may not appreciate fully the process of recovery, of insurance claims, of long lines, frustration at every turn and the endless waiting for simple everyday items. We do not understand the temporary reality of little or no gasoline, no electricity or air-conditioning for sometimes a month or more. We cannot transmit the smells of rancid food, dead animals and squalor, of mold and soaked carpet, of mud and stagnant brown and green pools of water. Nor can we give dimension to the “sticks and bones” of once stately and lively neighborhoods.  We cannot always see the fear and anger brought by the disgusting looter, or other hooligans who seize the opportunity to take advantage of the crisis and attempt to incite anarchy.  We hear about help coming to the aid of an affected area but we cannot fully appreciate the enormity of the help needed or the massive task of delivering such aid.  Sometimes we do not fully appreciate the heroic efforts of those whose lives also change dramatically through deeds of kindness, dedication, caring and volunteerism. 

For all the planning and public forums across national, state, and local governmental jurisdictions, the larger population still does not have a visceral sense of urgency about emergency or contingency planning. Government websites are packed with warnings, preparation materials, and guides with sound advice, all intended to help their citizenry prepare and give their communities a chance to navigate nature’s wrath  safely. Hurricane season conferences and forums occur every spring and summer in every state potentially affected. Broadcasters take time to give a “head’s up” and tips producing special reports and programs to help accentuate the message of preparedness. Still, too many people wait until it is literally too late (or the reality of the moment suggests that they are, in fact, about to experience hell on earth) to prepare themselves for a hurricane.   Others simply do some basic purchasing of goods and securing of property and declare their readiness, unaware that they have not altered their vulnerability one fraction. Still others, having experienced a “near miss” and are tired of executing their plans for perceived naught, become apathetic and hesitant in the face of the next approaching storm. 

Getting Started

Give yourself a big pat on the back for contemplating a comprehensive preparedness regimen and plan.  You are to be congratulated for taking such personal responsibility and most assuredly, you will be in a better position than many others will. One caveat, no amount of preparation or planning can make you, your family or your business safe.  Only good decisions in the face of agonizing choice will give you that chance.  Discipline in your approach and practice will rarely let you down.  Building a “culture of preparedness” for yourself, your family and your business will help you make good decisions and provide knowledge and options when life-threatening storms approach.