In a recent article in which Newsmax interviewed Ex-CIA Director Hayden, he stated his worries about Iran developing a nuclear weapon.
Hayden, also stated that Iran seems "hell-bent" on obtaining the weapon. He goes on to say that this really worries him, and could destabilize the entire region.
This weeks tip is not so much related to large scale disasters but more about home safety. Being a former 9-1-1 worker I know how important it is to teach your kids about calling 9-1-1.
We've all heard the stories in the news about a young boy or girl who dials 9-1-1 and saves the life of their parent. Unfortunately most of us think something like this will never happen to us, until it does.
The most important part of this is teaching your kids to call nine-one-one rather than nine-eleven, and teach them when they should call.
Here are some important tips when calling nine-one-one:
Teach them to call from a house phone (land-line) not a cell phone, unless there is no house phone available.
Teach them that once they call not to hang up
Make sure the child knows how to give their name, address, and if possible their phone number.
Teach them when they might need to call nine-one-one (especially if someone has health issues)
Teach them they can get police, fire and or an ambulance when they call
If possible have your child practice by unplugging the phone and having the child dial the numbers and the parent acting as the 9-1-1 call operator.
Last week I gave you the tip about keeping important documents in ziplock bags. This week I am recommending that you keep digital copies of these documents on a USB key in your disaster kit.
If you have to evacuate quickly due to a disaster or other event you may have a limited amount of time to gather important documents before you have to leave. In addition to limited time, it is also easy to forget something while you are preparing to leave.
While you are fleeing there is a good chance that items may become lost, damaged etc. Having the items stored digitally gives you an advantage of having the information at your finger tips to read off to someone, and in some cases you may have an easier time replacing the documents.
If possible store a digital copy of the document in pdf format and use notepad to enter important information about the documents such as ID numbers, and other important information for each document.
The reason for this is you may not have access to a computer that can easily open the digital document, but you should at least be able to find a computer that will allow you to read the text based documents.
The main idea here is to speed up your ability to replace the documents should you need to do so, and proving it is you will speed the process up a bit.
If you can also include recent and updated photos of each family member in case you become separated.
As I often say, business disruptions come in many forms, not just from earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes.
This point made clear again from the events yesterday morning when a small plane struck a tower that was a single point of failure which carried electricity to the Palo Alto power grid.
The loss of power disrupted roughly 28,000 customers which included, 240 startups and high tech companies such as Facebook headquarters (the Facebook site was unaffected), VMware, and HP. At least Two medical facilities were on back-up generators and had to cancel elective surgeries and re-route emergency patients to other area hospitals.
At least two cell towers were not working, and some land-line services were disrupted, and the areas banks had to activate their contingency plans.
Authorities were asking people not to call 911 regarding the outage, and to reduce water usage.
Tesla Motors suffered the worst loss. The three people who died in the plane were employees of the company, and my thoughts and prayers go out to them, their business, and family members who are affected by the loss.
If any good might come from such a tragedy I hope that it makes people aware how vulnerable we are to events such as this, both in our personal lives and from the point of view of business.
My name is Keith Erwood, and disasters are my life. Well, not just disasters really, but to help people like you, owners, executives and managers of businesses prepare for disasters and emergencies.
CIA, 
