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Nobody expects a Spanish Inquisition!
Mar. 23rd, 2020 12:16 pmIf you had asked me a few months ago whether we were prepared for an emergency, I would have said yes, moderately prepared. We have solar panels on the roof, flashlights and batteries and candles and matches and a couple of hand-cranked radio-flashlight devices. We have smoke detectors, CO detectors and fire extinguishers. We have computers and an internet hotspot. We have cell phones. We have an adequate supply of nonperishable food, water and prescription and nonprescription medication. And cash. We also have tons of reading matter and CDs and vinyl records and DVDs. We even have toilet paper!
The thing is, this isn't the emergency I had in mind. So what kind of emergency DID I imagine?
Uppermost in my mind would have been some kind of extreme weather emergency. Like the great ice storm of 1998 or the tornado that tore through Arlington Woods, Dunrobin and Constance Bay a couple of years ago. Or maybe a flood, tsunami, earthquake, volcano or wildfire. Not that any of those things is easy for anyone afflicted. But the thing is, the crisis itself is usually relatively short-lived, it doesn't affect absolutely everyone, and those that are less afflicted (some of them, at least) are usually ready and willing to help out with the extended aftermath.
Next on my list would have been a major criminal event or attack. Like 9/11 or the Montreal Massacre or the October Crisis. Mass shootings or even individual but highly symbolic ones like the killing of the guard at the War Memorial.
It might have been some failure of critical infrastructure, ostensibly unrelated to weather, like the big power outage in August 2003. Or a disruption of the water supply or a nuclear plant explosion.
Health crises would certainly have been on my list too - like the SARS outbreak of 2003 or the H1N1 flu epidemic. And very scary to me at the time, although I'm not sure it was that widespread, was the meningococcal outbreak in the early 1990s, when seemingly healthy children and teens would suddenly drop dead. Then there was flesh-eating disease. But a major difference between the health scares I've just mentioned (except maybe flesh-eating disease) and Covid 19 is that a vaccine became available in very short order.
In both nature and scope, the Covid-19 pandemic is very different from previous global emergencies. Dare I point out that it is even easier in some ways? We still have heat, light and water. We still have telephone service, mail service, curb side garbage pickup, newspaper delivery and other delivery services. We can still get property services like snow removal and lawn-mowing. Grocery stores and pharmacies remain open for in-person shopping, with certain restrictions in place to promote social distancing and protect both the employees and the customers. And the biggest thing going for us is that electronically speaking, we are more connected than ever before. That's a huge advantage at the moment. Even within the heavy cloud of health and economic disaster, the silver lining shines through while the cloud is still raging.
Still, I'm realizing that in the parable of the grasshopper and the ants, we may have been the grasshoppers after all.
The thing is, this isn't the emergency I had in mind. So what kind of emergency DID I imagine?
Uppermost in my mind would have been some kind of extreme weather emergency. Like the great ice storm of 1998 or the tornado that tore through Arlington Woods, Dunrobin and Constance Bay a couple of years ago. Or maybe a flood, tsunami, earthquake, volcano or wildfire. Not that any of those things is easy for anyone afflicted. But the thing is, the crisis itself is usually relatively short-lived, it doesn't affect absolutely everyone, and those that are less afflicted (some of them, at least) are usually ready and willing to help out with the extended aftermath.
Next on my list would have been a major criminal event or attack. Like 9/11 or the Montreal Massacre or the October Crisis. Mass shootings or even individual but highly symbolic ones like the killing of the guard at the War Memorial.
It might have been some failure of critical infrastructure, ostensibly unrelated to weather, like the big power outage in August 2003. Or a disruption of the water supply or a nuclear plant explosion.
Health crises would certainly have been on my list too - like the SARS outbreak of 2003 or the H1N1 flu epidemic. And very scary to me at the time, although I'm not sure it was that widespread, was the meningococcal outbreak in the early 1990s, when seemingly healthy children and teens would suddenly drop dead. Then there was flesh-eating disease. But a major difference between the health scares I've just mentioned (except maybe flesh-eating disease) and Covid 19 is that a vaccine became available in very short order.
In both nature and scope, the Covid-19 pandemic is very different from previous global emergencies. Dare I point out that it is even easier in some ways? We still have heat, light and water. We still have telephone service, mail service, curb side garbage pickup, newspaper delivery and other delivery services. We can still get property services like snow removal and lawn-mowing. Grocery stores and pharmacies remain open for in-person shopping, with certain restrictions in place to promote social distancing and protect both the employees and the customers. And the biggest thing going for us is that electronically speaking, we are more connected than ever before. That's a huge advantage at the moment. Even within the heavy cloud of health and economic disaster, the silver lining shines through while the cloud is still raging.
Still, I'm realizing that in the parable of the grasshopper and the ants, we may have been the grasshoppers after all.
