Disasters aren't just for movies

The difference between proactive and reactive can be the difference between life and death.

As a society if not a species, we tend to prepare for the worst after the worst has already happened. Witness Pearl Harbor. Witness 9/11. Witness Hurricane Katrina. Even when we know better or should know better, our tendency is to hope for the best and plan that way, too. Unfortunately, that’s a formula for disaster.

Despite history’s painful lessons and a small library of ominous warnings, most Americans remain oblivious or numb to the very real prospects of life-altering destruction. Pat Frank’s novel “Alas Babylon,” published in 1959, opened many thousands of eyes to the threats of nuclear warfare. The images heat-blasted on those eyeballs have faded somewhat, although the book remains popular all these years later.

In 1983, the movie “Testament” provided another gut-wrenchingly painful iteration of the prospective horrors of nuclear war, and the fact that we haven’t had one suggests that enough people have been paying attention. Or have they?

In 2009, William R. Forstchen suitably shocked readers with his fictional account of a nuclear attack on the United States that didn’t directly touch a single human being, yet set our country back 500 years. “One Second After” explored in horrifying fashion what it might be like to try to recover from an electromagnetic pulse attack, with three nuclear warheads detonated miles above our country destroying the power grid.

Journalist Ted Koppel’s 2015 book “Lights Out” takes a very nonfictional approach to similarly ruinous scenarios. Koppel painstakingly points out that our nation, the most powerful in the world, is sickeningly vulnerable to the devastation that could be unleashed by a rogue nation state or even one evil hacker. Among Koppel’s conclusions: If it isn’t too late already, Americans should invest heavily and immediately in preparing for the worst. That way, we might actually avoid it.

This Sunday, The Press will take readers on a what-if nightmarish journey that not only might happen but someday will happen. Nobody knows how much time we’ve got to prepare for this natural disaster or how much it will actually impact North Idaho, but thankfully, steps are now being taken to mitigate the damage.

You can decide how ready we are and what you’re willing to do to be better prepared.