That was no exercise in futility

Be prepared, the Boy Scouts command.

But are we?

The Big Blow across North Idaho last Nov. 17, when wind gusts touched low hurricane levels, suggested we are not. Communication within the region’s emergency response network wasn’t just fractured; as winds howled and citizens scurried for cover and information, it seemed like nobody in an official capacity was home.

That was a few hours of unruly wind. What do you suppose will happen when a 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami are unleashed on the Pacific Northwest? When thousands of people will almost certainly die, many more than that will be injured, and many more than that will be displaced?

Four days of disaster practice throughout the Northwest involving some 20,000 people was a major step toward demonstrating the Boy Scout motto. Seattle and Portland hosted spectacular disaster scenarios and solutions. Kootenai County was an epicenter of organized chaos. Even Gov. Butch Otter got into the game, participating in Cascadia Rising regional response exercises Thursday at Gowen Field in Boise and starring in a minute-long PSA for the Idaho Department of Homeland Security (go to http://bit.ly/1VOM1LB).

In our view, the Northwest passed the test. Even if the Cascadia Subduction Zone doesn’t misbehave in the next hundred years or two, the real value of last week’s exercises might have been getting first responders and all levels of emergency agencies communicating and working side by side. When you’ve prepared for the worst, anything less shouldn’t be so daunting.

As for the rest of us, having confidence in our emergency responders is important, but we have preparations ourselves to make. That’s not news to many of you; if you aren’t prepared for a significant disaster, you’ve at least shown great interest.

Going back to Jan. 1 of this year, the No. 10 most-read story on this newspaper’s free website, cdapress.com, was the story of a Coeur d’Alene doctor arrested in an alleged drug ring. That story generated 9,827 reads.

The No. 5 most-read story the first half of this year was April Fuhl’s annual spoof. This one about Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls merging drew 13,222 readers.

The second most-read story was a feature about the first girl born in the Underdahl family in 101 years. That gem was consumed by 21,927 readers.

And the No. 1 most-read story so far in 2016? That was a February column by Richard Dance (see http://bit.ly/21aqxbu) that foreshadowed the June training exercises, a sidebar to the main story about the damage an earthquake and tsunami could unleash on the Northwest. Dance’s column, “Be prepared, North Idaho,” had generated 69,711 reads by 4 p.m. Friday.

If we’re not fully prepared yet, we’ve certainly come a long way since November.