Are you ready for the next emergency?

How ready are you for the next emergency? Do you have a backup generator or maybe stockpiles of bottled water? If so, you're not alone. My next guests argue disaster prepping is as American as apple pie. This is Cincinnati edition on WVXU. I'm Lucy May. Joining me now to talk about our nation's history of self-defense and self-reliance, our Sonoma State University Political Science Professor, Emily Ray, and Arizona State University Associate Professor Robert Kirsch. Welcome to the program, Emily and Robert. Thank you for having us. Thanks for having us. Yeah, I really appreciate your being here. Emily, how many people in the U.S. are prepping in some kind of way? That's a tough figure to estimate because some people prepare and they don't consider themselves a prepper. So if... Most everyday people have some bottles of water or like three days worth of supplies for an earthquake or send a disaster prep kit to their school that's mandated. They might not think that they're a prepper, but they're prepping. And then some people identify with that title and some people have other ways. Maybe they think of themselves as homesteaders. So this is all to say it's very difficult to pin down a number for that. But at least from... economic indicators, there's a growing market of people that are looking for supplies that they can use to either take with them if they need to evacuate or to stay home. So it's a pretty significant number of Americans do some form of prepping. Yeah. I've seen the figure like almost half. Is that the kind of number you've seen out there, Robert? Yeah, I think one of the indicators that we look at is the FEMA household survey, and I think that indicates something close to, if not over half of Americans they consider as engaging in prepping behavior. But just to reiterate what Emily said, too, it's such a fungible category. It can be hard to determine, you know, who's a capital P prepper, who's not. So it's kind of difficult to suss out. That makes sense. Well, in some of the reading I was doing for this conversation, I read, Emily, that you have your own kind of bugout bag, and Robert, you have a supply of potable water in case of emergency. Can each of you talk about what led you to be prepared in those ways? Maybe we'll start with you, Emily. Sure. So I live in a really fire prone part of the country, and we've had massive fires that have torn through cities and not just rural areas. And so it makes sense to be prepared for the particular...

geography that you live in and kind of how prepared your local and state governments might be. Some state and local governments can be pretty responsive. Some are less so. Some have a lot of funding. Some don't. So it's kind of taking stock of what you think your kind of larger scale community resources are and your own individual resources. And so I want to be able to account for the immediate members of my family, but also be able to be a good neighbor. And if my neighbors and community members need something, then we can pool resources. So just kind of thinking about what it means to kind of live well with others and also be aware that something could happen that could change your life very quickly. So that's for us kind of using more like the FEMA recommendations for preparation. Yeah, Robert, what about you? Yeah, it's a similar kind of consideration. I look at the FEMA guidelines for where I live in the Sonoran Desert, where we need to make sure that there's enough water to make it through some disruption of services. And so I end up focusing on that. But it really just comes down to FEMA does a pretty good job. publishing guidelines for the different kind of areas, biomes, however you want to put it, across the United States. And so, yeah, it's just a matter of looking sort of where you're at, what geographical issues might arise. And then to highlight Emily's point, you know, how do you get ready for those adverse events and how do you be a good neighbor and community member as you sort of think through those scenarios? Yeah. Robert, I know a lot of people in the U.S. saw store shelves empty during the COVID pandemic. There was a panic over stuff like toilet paper and other necessities. Do you have any indication that that lead to an increase in the number of people who stockpile certain things or do some other form of prepping? I think going back to the FEMA data from the household survey, I don't know that we've seen that necessarily. It seems like a pretty... standard sort of rise in the behavior. I think the the pandemic really kind of put some of these fragile supply chain issues front and center in the minds of a lot of Americans and got them thinking maybe more consciously than usual about, you know, how do people provision for themselves and how do they get through tough times? I also think there's a sense of the sort of like immediacy of that feeling, right? Like things. felt normal and then all of a sudden it didn't and some very basic things that all of a sudden weren't available really sort of as a it's like a cold water splash where it's like wait you know what am i doing you know how am i going to make it through some of this stuff so um

So I guess that's like a two-part answer, right? Like on the one hand, I don't think we see any aggregate evidence that there's been an increase beyond the sort of standard increase we've been seeing. But I also think there's an immediacy that a lot of folks might be confronting. Yeah. Emily, you and Robert have written that prepping is as American as apple pie. Where do you trace the roots of preparedness and that sort of thing in the U.S.? We take our start with the Boy Scouts of America and the motto is be prepared. And we look at kind of a history of scouting organizations that really cropped up in Europe and then into the United States around the turn of the century. So late 1800s, early 1900s. And a lot of those scouting organizations were really concerned about the loss of these kind of homestead or frontier skills. that young people would lose as the nation became increasingly industrialized and urbanized. And that maybe people wouldn't know how to hunt and fish and build a shelter and account for themselves. And so Boy Scouts was really imparting those skills to young men. And then the Girl Scouts came pretty shortly after to impart these kind of more feminized. homesteading skills to young girls. There's also a fear that women would not have these skills as they also entered the same rapidly changing economy and social expectations. And so part of that is you never know what's going to happen, fragile industrial supply chains. You could find yourself kind of back in a more less accounted for state of being and you would have lost those skills over the changes of the United States. So a lot of that is skill acquisition for always being prepared no matter what you might encounter. And then we start to see that move through the First World War with the War Gardens or Victory Gardens that everyday people were encouraged to use their homesteading skills in their suburban neighborhoods. So they would pickle, jar, can. and make their own food so that you could ration food on the industrial production scale to troops, and people could be more self-responsible. because there were resources stretched more thinly as a nation and as the government was making distribution choices about the warfront and everyday people back at home. This was a way for people to also feel they were plugged into the kind of patriotic spirit of winning the war by being self-responsible. And then the Second World War, we also had the Victory Gardens, including just growing flowers that was meant to kind of lift the spirits of people who might be feeling the pressures of war, losing family members. the kind of really hard parts of war. And then we kind of bump over to the atomic era with the advent of this radical new wartime technology, nuclear and atomic energy and technology.

And then the federal government making kind of the conscious choice to tell people that they were individually responsible for making sure that they survived a potential atomic attack from the Soviet Union and then preparing guidelines for Americans to take it into their own hands as an individual matter that could be resolved economically. And then we eventually make our way over to Silicon Valley by looking at the space programs and kind of the dreams of the Silicon Valley. kind of most economically elite, trying to get us to Mars, become a multi-planetary species, and thinking about preparing for the event that the Earth is no longer even habitable because of climate change, wars, those kinds of things. And so that's part of what they imagine is a reason that we should have Martian colonies. lunar colonies is for that what they perceive to be eventuality. So that's kind of the thread that runs through what we're looking at in these different historical and modern periods. We're talking about survival preparedness and its deep roots in American history. Do you have questions or comments? Give us a call at 513-419-7100 or you can email talk at WVXU. Robert, Emily mentioned that, you know, this being prepared, this behavior really covers the gamut in terms of income and background. I mean, this includes everybody from homesteaders to the ultra-rich who are, you know, trying to figure out, can we colonize Mars and that sort of thing. Do you see a broad range there in the number of, in the people who are doing this kind of preparation? Yeah, I think so. And I think this gets back to the initial question that we were talking about, about how many people are doing this. There's different behaviors for different people at different price points. And so, you know, regardless of motivation, in other words, people trying to get off planet, that's a different motivation and then, you know, maybe some of the more everyday kinds of prepping that, like, I might be engaged in. But there's... there's an increasing sort of market for this that is kind of wrapped up in this sort of American identity about self-sufficiency and an ability to take responsibility for one's own fate and outcomes. So I think we're seeing a little more of a maturation of that market in the sense of. I think more developed sort of consumer options for engaging and prepping behavior in ways that are not. necessarily like extreme or what was once sort of marginal or almost like peculiar behavior has becoming sort of integrated I think into into more mainstream sort of ways of engaging with this behavior if that makes sense yeah Emily why do you think that is why do you think it has become is becoming so much more mainstream

You know, we kind of make this argument that it's always been mainstream, but we're seeing different iterations of it. So I think we're inverting the argument that prepping was this quote unquote fringe activity and kind of subgroups and now it's becoming mainstream. But we are saying it's always been mainstream as kind of part of American ethos. But we just see different practices getting maybe more accepted. I think some of that is a combination of. People wanting to be more prepared because they might be feeling more political, economic, cultural insecurity, whatever that means to people. That can be true across ideologies. It's not just on one side of a political spectrum or another. Everybody's probably feeling some kind of uncertainty from whatever perspective they're coming from. And there's been a lot of global changes. COVID as well. But I also think there's a little bit of tail wagging the dog in the sense that the market is producing more in different kinds of prepping equipment that's appealing to markets that didn't previously think of themselves as preppers. So something we were looking at are like prepping gear that's really pitching towards kind of more like city or suburban upper middle class families that may not want to go to Costco and get the be ready bucket. but they would like to have something that feels a little more in line with their aesthetic tastes. And so there's already a market for that. And so there's companies that make... kind of like leather and canvas satchels that are advertised as this will look good in your living room and you won't have to worry about being perceived to be other than the same cultural economic position you've already inhabited. And so I think there's these new markets, I think Oprah and Gwyneth Paltrow, these kind of like big cultural iconic figures that a lot of people listen to. have endorsed some of those products. And so that's reaching a totally different demographic than I think a lot of prepping has in the past. And so I don't know if it's people were looking for that and they found it or now this product is being advertised. And now people say, oh, I should get that. So I think it's probably those both directions. Robert, for people who aren't familiar, explain what that Costco bucket is that Emily just referenced. Yeah, there is an increasing consumer market for shelf-stable foodstuffs that last some number of months or years. And I can at least verify that in the Costco's near me in the Phoenix area, there are indeed on the N-Caps. some five, 10 gallon buckets that have shelf stable food in them. And so this sort of temporality becomes pretty important, right? It's not just securing or building a stockpile, but making sure that stockpile can be maintained and discharged if needed pretty well into the future. And so I think you're seeing more of those kinds of

consumer goods. And I think, you know, mentioning the fact that you can get these at Costco is sort of our shorthand way of saying that, you know, this is an example of that kind of mainstreamification of this behavior. You know, it's not. this sort of peculiar thing that some people are doing, but rather is a kind of calculus that a lot of people are making. And whether to M's point, you know, these were consumers in search of these things or whether these are products in search of consumers, this is now a growing segment that's sort of completely integrated into people's consumption habits and patterns. Emily, is there any part of this? trend or these behaviors that you're seeing that reflects a lack of trust that the government will be there to help quickly if a disaster does strike? Yeah, I think that this very much suggests that people somewhere are aware that if things really, really get bad. they cannot be confident that there's going to be a public response that's timely and will actually reach them. So I think we have a history of disasters in the United States from Katrina to the most recent hurricanes in the south, especially Appalachia, where the public response was really slow. It was not particularly organized. And a lot of people had to fend for themselves for a lot longer than they might have even expected. You know, FEMA tells you about how long you might, you know, three to five days or something. you might be expected to be without public services or before public agencies can reach you, far exceeds that in reality for a lot of people who are experiencing those kinds of disasters. Or public infrastructure meant to support, evacuation fails, as we saw with Katrina. something washes out, a bridge washes out that wasn't expected to, or a hurricane lands somewhere geographically like Appalachia that historically doesn't get that kind of weather pattern. And so there isn't a government response already prepared for such a thing. So I think people are... able to see or have personally experienced the kind of absence. But we also see some kind of bigger trends at place. And that's where our research into the 1950s and 60s was particularly informative. We read a lot of the reports that were written between the National Security Council and President Eisenhower and Truman when they were reflecting on what is the obligation of the federal government in the event of an atomic bomb dropping on the U.S. And after much debate, they decided that it was best for Americans to be told that they need to prepare for themselves and not to count on the federal government coming in to relieve them in part because that was supposed to be the kind of individualist American that they wanted to have survived. And it was also hoping that individuals would.

take care of themselves so the US government would divert more resources to underground bunkers for major businesses. but basically industry that was really critical to U.S. economy and for their own federal government employees. So it was a lot of resource choices as well. And so I think because this is already kind of part of what people expect in addition to the failures of response, then I think that's part of why people are interested and attracted to or understand they kind of have to account for themselves. Well, this has been fascinating. I've been talking with, excuse me, Sonoma State University Political Science Professor Emily Ray and Arizona State University Associate Professor Robert Kirsch. And remind me of the name of your book again. Sure. It's called Be Prepared, Doomsday Prepping in the United States. Okay. Co-authors who've been working for long time together and a lot of fascinating research. Thank you both so much for your time today. Thank you for having us. Thanks for having us. Up next, tips for what all of us should have at the ready in case of emergency. If you think you might have questions or comments, call 513-419-7100, or you can email talk at wvxu.org. This is Cincinnati Edition. From flash floods to tornadoes, communities across the tri-state have experienced natural disasters and the cleanup and recovery that follows. How prepared are you and your family for the next one? You're listening to Cincinnati Edition on WVXU. I'm Lucy May. Joining me now to discuss disaster preparedness and where to start are B-Ready owner, Jim Jordan Parrish, and in Trust IT, cybersecurity consultant, Dave Hatter. Thank you both for being here today. Always my pleasure, Lucy, thanks. I think a lot of people think of preparedness. They think about the bunkers of the Cold War, but there are natural disasters that upend people's lives all the time. Both of you are leaders in your communities in different ways. Dave, I'll start with you. What are some of the disasters you've dealt with recently and how have you seen them affect your community? Well, thankfully, Lucy, I haven't had to deal with too many disasters per se firsthand, but you bring up a valid point. You know, it's not just natural disasters. It's things like cybersecurity attacks on critical infrastructure, which groups like the FBI and the DHS have been warning about for a long time. It's also electromagnetic pulse attacks. It's solar flares. There's all kinds of different things that could potentially cause some sort of outage. And, you know, that's the thing people need to be aware of as we increasingly had technology into our society. We're at a place where we have a lot of technology that could go down for many different reasons, including natural disasters. Yeah. What about you, Jim Jordan? Have you seen natural disasters in your community have an impact recently? Oh, yeah. So where we live, tornadoes are obviously a big thing.

And we're also the predicted epicenter for the New Madrid fault zone. And over the last 22 years, I've been all over the U.S. and parts of the world dealing with hurricanes and earthquakes and stuff like that. And, you know, it's always something to think about, you know, natural disasters, man-made disasters. And. how you can be prepared to kind of get through those things while you wait on either a government response or if that comes at all. Yeah. Well, and Dave, I should have been clearer. I'm thinking also back to the 2009 tornado outbreak that hit Piner and other communities nearby. Dave, I believe you did some volunteer work there, right? What did you see? Yeah, I did. It was. Pretty substantial destruction out there. Actually have some relatives out in that area, and we went out and tried to help them clean up and just help with the community. And if you haven't ever experienced what a tornado can do up close and personal, it's pretty shocking and pretty terrifying, really. I can only imagine how scary it would have been to live through that. But yeah, the devastation was pretty, pretty astounding. And again, they were without power for a long period of time. And at the end of the day, Lucy, for all the things that I would talk about, it's really... Once the power goes down for an extended period of time, then what? Yeah. What about you, Jim Jordan? Were you, did you see the aftermath of those out, those tornadoes in 2009? So in 2009, I had just got back from the Middle East, and we actually had an ice storm here. during that time where my home was without power for almost a month. Oh, my gosh. Those tornado outbreaks are a little further east than what we are. But I do recall seeing about them on the news and stuff. Yeah. Well, we're talking about preparing for a disaster and hearing, and we're going to get tips for getting started to prepare. Do you have questions or comments? Give us a call at 513-419-7100, or you can email talk at WVXU.org. Jim Jordan, you mentioned that you were without power for a month. I mean, how can you possibly be prepared for something like that? There's a lot of ways. So I come from a rural area. Most folks around here, it's pretty rule. We were lucky we had a wood stove in the house, you know, plenty of food and water put up. And, I mean, other than you're just kind of losing those day-to-day amenities that people kind of take for granted anyway, like being able to turn on the light, charge your cell phone. We didn't have cell phone service anyway, so there's no point in charging them. It's really just a matter of, you know, how mentally resilient you can be and how well prepared you are from the start will really play a big effect into that. Yeah. Dave, when you and your family were helping in Piner back in 2009, did it seem like families were prepared for the devastation they had to deal with? Not really. I don't think most people probably are prepared for that sort of thing because, I mean, thankfully, Lucy, it doesn't happen that often, but...

When it does happen, you know, when you're unprepared, it can put you in a terrible situation. And, you know, I listened to that previous segment, and I know that there's this sort of stigma around preppers, but I would just encourage people go see what Ready.gov from the Department of Homeland Security says about how to build a kit and what you should have in it and so forth. Again, they mentioned the Boy Scouts. You know, being prepared is a good idea because you can't predict when there's going to be a tornado or an earthquake or something like that. Yeah. One of my good friends always says, if you stay ready, you don't have to get ready. Good point. Got to do that. Yeah, yeah. Jim Jordan, do you have any idea how long it took FEMA to arrive and provide help back in 2009? Or, Dave, you might know that. I mean, how long does it typically take to get a response when communities are really struck with something like this? I can tell you, in 2009 for the ice storm, it took about four or five days before the first, like, FEMA started showing up. The National Guard, which I was part of, then we arrived, but there was only like 10 to 12 of us within 24 hours. FEMA, I think it was four to five days. And even then the... The disaster was so widespread, their resources were so thin. It was kind of a limited response. I think it's the same thing you're seeing down in North Carolina with the hurricane they had. Yeah. Well, we are talking about preparing for a disaster and hearing tips for getting started. Do you have questions or comments? Give us a call at 513-419-7100. Or you can email talk at wvxu.org. Jim Jordan, you have a store, this store, be ready, that's all about being prepared. Tell us what inspired you to get that going. So, you know, I've been to a lot of disasters. I've worked fire in EMS. I've been in law enforcement. I've been in the Kentucky National Guard for 20 years. I've got to combine 22 years experience and just public service. And I've been to a lot of disasters. And I've never heard anyone say, oh, I was prepared enough or I was too prepared for this. And. A few years ago, I was actually building just a, they call them an Altoids 10 survival kit. And I realized that, you know, to build this little $30 kit, it cost me like $150 to go online and have to buy all the things and then I would break down the smaller pieces of to build that kit. And I thought, man, it'd be nice if there was just a place I could go and get what I needed. And my father, who co-ons the store with me, moved back up here a couple years ago after he retired. And he was kind of looking for something to do, a job that basically didn't require him to have a normal schedule. So we sit down, we talked, and we decided we would go ahead and open the store. This was kind of my plan for when I retired. So we went ahead and did that.

We've been going for a little over a year now, and it's been great. Yeah. You mentioned all the different times that you were responding to disasters or emergencies yourself. Did you see anything during those responses that made you think, wow, I really, really need to get people more ready? Anything that really affected you? Yeah. The worst thing is always seeing kids. You know, children don't really have the ability to prepare for themselves. And if you've never had a kid look you in the face and tell you they're hungry, it's not really a situation I hope you ever have to experience. But I have, and I realize that like my children would never go through that. My kids were never going to look at a first responder or somebody else and say, I'm hungry. And that had a major impact on how I have done things for the last 20 years. Well, and I just want to point out for our listeners, your stories in Eddyville, Kentucky, right? And it's called B-E-E-E-prepared. So that's the story we're talking about. Be ready. Oh, be ready. I'm sorry. I apologize. I had the Boy Scout stuck in my head. Be ready. You're good. We're be-ready, survival, and preparedness. And we also do homesteading and military surplus. Yeah. Well, Dave, I know you're the cyber guy, but just in terms of general preparedness, I don't know folks in your community talk to you about it, with severe weather becoming more common. Fort Wright hasn't had to deal with huge problems with that lately, but do you think more people are thinking about how to be prepared? Well, I hope so. And, you know, I talk about this sort of thing fairly regularly, but generally more, again, from a critical infrastructure and the cybersecurity impact on it. But as I mentioned, Lucy, it's not just cybersecurity attacks, which there have been a serious uptick just in the last few weeks. It's things like solar flares. It's electromagnetic pulse. It's natural disasters. So, you know, are people more prepared? I don't know. I get the impression that most people don't really want to talk about this when I bring it up, especially some of the more extreme things like the Carrington event, which was a solar flare in 1859, that actually set telegraph wires on fire and shocked telegraph operators. Imagine if a solar flare could do that to really antiquated equipment like that in 1859, what would happen in today's extremely technologically driven digital society. It would not be good. But again, Lucy, mostly I get the... Yeah, I don't really want to talk about that. That's crazy. That can never happen because it wouldn't be good and we need more people. Again, I'm not talking about like doomsday prepper just to be prepared to go look at like ready.gov, see what DHS is suggesting there. It would be in everyone's best interest to have some supplies because the supply chain generally is about three days long. And after that, you're going to start running out of stuff just like we saw with the COVID pandemic. Yeah. So, Jim Jordan, what are some of the things you need to have to be prepared? So we tell people and...

And like the mayor said, we're not doomsday preppers. You know, we want people to be prepared for general disasters. And if you're prepared for a big disaster, the little ones are easy. And we tell people food, water, medical, communication, and security. Those are your five big things. But above all, knowledge and skills is probably the most important thing. Yeah, I've got water purification systems at my house to purify thousands of gallons of water because where I live, there's a lot of freestanding water. We have lakes and rivers and ponds and all that. And I also keep a supply of fresh water on hand, but also know how to make a water filter if I needed to from things that I can scrounge and scavenge if I had to. But it's much easier just to run it through a lifesaver filter. How do you make a water filter out of things you can scavenge? I mean, I know it's probably too complicated to explain on the radio in a meaningful way, but what kind of stuff do you need to make your own water filter? Basically, straw makes a good starter, but you would need like gravel, charcoal, and sand. Basically, you're wanting to filter out all the impurities. Charcoal adsorbs to a lot of bad stuff in water that you don't want to drink. And that would pull out all your very solid stuff. And then obviously a rolling boil to kill off any bacteria and pathogens, viruses, that kind of thing. In a nutshell. Yeah. Well, we have a lot more to talk about. We will continue this conversation after a short break. This is Cincinnati Edition. This is Cincinnati Edition on WVXU. I'm Lucy May. We're back with our conversation about disaster preparedness and how to get started. My guests are B-Ready owner, Jim Jordan Parrish, and entrust IT cybersecurity consultant, Dave Hatter. You can join the conversation. Call 513-419-7100, or you can email talk at WVXU. Dave, you referenced cyber attacks earlier. And I saw ABC News reported possible cyber intrusions targeting water and waste water utilities in at least a dozen states. I'm sure you're way ahead of this beyond me. Have you been following this? What does that worry you? I have been following it, Lucy. It does worry me. In fact, you know, as you know, I'm the mayor for it, right. So I kind of have multiple hats in this space. So, yeah, I do care about critical infrastructure. I also belong to an organization called InfraGard. For any of your listeners that are interested in this space, InfraGard is a public-private partnership with the FBI. We have an active Cincinnati chapter. One of my colleagues at entrust is the local president. They meet regularly. And the whole idea is information sharing between the FBI and nerds like me out there to understand what's going on and try to.

get in front of this critical infrastructure stuff. So yeah, you mentioned the water plants. And by the way, this isn't the first time it's happened. This water plant attack thing has been out there for a while. The difference is the news broke that several plants in Minnesota were attacked. One apparently was shut down for some period of time. Another one had to revert to manual operations. Then as the news spread, it was seven states, then 12 states. The numbers I've seen are possibly as many as 100 different water plants across these 12 states have been attacked in some way. Then there was a recent story about ports in North Carolina hit. We've had another recent attack. Just showed up in the news yesterday. Northern California City declares emergency after malware disrupts 911 and public safety systems. So, you know, DHS and FBI have been warning about this for a long time, as have other agencies like SISA, the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency. The good news is there are a lot of people paying attention to this. The bad news is, you know, each state has many municipalities and has all kinds of government and quasi-government agencies that are providing critical infrastructure and critical services to the folks that live there. And although folks like me have been warning about this for a long time, we're now starting to see this is no longer theoretical. It's actually happening in the real world with the potential to significantly disrupt our society because we now depend on technology to make all this stuff work. Yeah. Well, you mentioned these federal warnings, but how prepared our state governments I'm thinking of in Ohio and Kentucky in particular for these kinds of attacks? It varies widely. And this is a real sore spot for me because, as you know, I live in Kentucky. I can see Ohio from my house. Ohio, I would describe as a leader in this space. Ohio has something called the Ohio Cyber Collaboration Committee that has sort of four prongs, one of which is the Ohio Cyber Reserve. And one of the things they do, and this is all funded through the state of Ohio, kind of mostly runs out of the Ohio National Guard. They provide resources. They provide education. In some cases, they will show up to try to help with an incident at a government agency. So Ohio has taken this seriously, and in my opinion, and done a great job. Another thing Ohio did is last year, Ohio had House Bill 96, which is now enshrined in law as Ohio revised code 9.64. It forces local governments to announce that they're going to make a ransom payment and have their official government body, whatever that is, vote on it. There's an incident reporting requirement for cybersecurity incidents. They define what those are. And then reporting to the Ohio Department of Public Safety within seven days and the Ohio auditor's office within 30 days. And then all political subdivisions, essentially any organization that collects taxes has to have a cybersecurity program kind of based off industry best practices. I have been trying to get something like this done in Kentucky for some time, and so far have not been very successful. So if you live in Kentucky and you're concerned about these things, I would love to have your help trying to get Kentucky to follow Ohio's lead because Ohio really is leading in this space. Okay.

Well, Jim Jordan, okay, what if something like this does happen, a natural disaster or a cyber intrusion or attack like Dave was just talking about that shuts down critical systems that we need? What kind of stuff should people have on hand? Like how much water should people have on hand? How much food? What about like how should people communicate? So many people rely on cell phones these days, a power source. Like what are the things people need to be thinking about? So, you know, you can go to like FEMA's websites and they have a lot of great guidelines. You know, they recommend 72 hours. We really recommend a lot more than that, a minimum of two weeks. For instance, like water, a gallon per person per day is kind of your minimum. As far as food goes, you know, you want at least 15 to 1,800 calories per day minimum. And you need to make sure that that's not just carbs. You know, they talked about the Costco survival buckets earlier. If you really look into those, those are mostly just carbohydrates, very little proteins, very little fats, the things your body actually requires. There's no good blanket statement to say, you need to have this. You really have to look at the situation, you know, their region, the environment. For example, where I live, there's metric tons of natural standing water, whereas someone that lives maybe out in the desert needs to stockpile more water. I can get by with keeping, you know, 250 gallons that'll last me quite a while. And then having the ability to filter more water. Communication, there's a lot of great options. There's as far as like radios, you have GMRS, HAM, FRS, CB. There's also a device out there that sends digital text messages over radio called meshtastic nodes. The reality is that you kind of have to sort your own path with this. It's one of the reasons we have the stores so people can come in and we can kind of help them either get started or redirect them to, all right, you've got your water and your food down pat. Well, how are you on medical and communications? How are you on security? That kind of thing. The good news is, is there's... There's tons of great information out there. There's a lot of bad information too, but there's just more and more information every day as, you know, prepping becomes, I'm not going to say it's becoming more mainstream. I think it's becoming more visible. You know, one of the things we really recommend, if you're going to watch YouTube, there's a channel called Dirty Civilian. Highly, highly recommend those guys. Of course, we have our own YouTube channel on our own Facebook where we try to put out a lot of information. But, you know, you need to make sure that our recommendation is always a two-week minimum of food, water. You need to have decent medical supplies laying around. A way to communicate with your neighbors and, you know, to receive information from like the government, you know, your first responders, stuff like that. And a way to protect yourself and protect that stuff. And building a great community, in my opinion, is probably the first start for that. You can't do this alone. At some point, you have to sleep. And that's what I tell people.

I'm like, I have my own community of people that, you know, I've built my trust with and that have skills that I don't have. And it's a process. This isn't, prepping isn't something you can just do overnight or make a trip to Costco and walk away prepared. You know, it does take quite a bit. And it's not even that it takes that much time or that much money, you know, like. If you look at our YouTube, we always tell people, we've got something for everyone's budget. And. People often think that like prepping is expensive and it's really not. There's a lot of ways, even if you don't come to a prepping store, you know, when you grocery shop, just buy a few extra items that you would normally eat anyway. You know, good, shell-stable foods. I want to get Dave back into this conversation. Dave, you were talking about how much of our lives rely on technology, the power grid being able to plug stuff in ourselves, you know, all these things we rely on every day. What do you think about in terms of a power source so you can keep all those things running? I mean, we used to talk about those Eton radios during our fun drives and be able to, you know, charge your cell phone and do all that stuff. What do you think about? Well, I think... You know, anything that's solar powered as a potential win, because part of the problem with all this, Lucy, and I want to throw out another organization to kind of go along with what we just talked about here, the foundation for infrastructure resilience. It's a bunch of former military and former InfraGuard people who've kind of spun off and are now just focused exclusively on infrastructure because, again, your water comes out of the pipe because electric pumps push it, right? If there is some sort of wide-scale disaster, like a solar flare, for example, which we can't control and can't really predict, if the grid goes down for an extended period of time, you're not going to have fuel to run your diesel power generators and so forth. Now, I'm not predicting this is going to happen, and I sincerely hope nothing like this ever happens in our lifetimes. But, again, it's already been demonstrated to what happened at least once in 1859. So I think, you know, solar-powered stuff is good. I think you need to work with reputable organizations to figure out like what's good and what's not. I'm not really an expert on that subject. But again, that's where organizations like Ready.gov, Jim Jordan's company, the Foundation for Infrastructure Resilience can provide some guidance. And there are lots of resources online for reputable sources. You just got to do your homework. And again, I'm hoping this never becomes a problem. But you can't rule these sort of things out. And as our society increasingly relies on technology and anything, I'd encourage your listeners. And I'll put all this stuff on my substack today, including this long list now of infrastructure-related cybersecurity attacks. There's a great book from a very well-known cybersecurity expert called Miko Hipponent. If it's smart, it's vulnerable. And his point is, if it has software in it and it's connected to other things, it is a potential target. And unfortunately, we are now seeing this play out with these recent spate of cyber attacks.

our critical infrastructure. Yeah. So, Jim Jordan, if people want to get started on a disaster plant and they've been listening to this and they really want to get started, where should they start? Is ready.gov a good place to start? Yeah, ready.gov is a great place to start. Like the mayor said, you know, you really got to do your homework, sit down with your family, with your community, those people you trust and say, all right, how much food am I going to need to get through? X, Y, and Z, how much water. And then, you know, create a list. And Ready.gov is a great place to go to get kind of that initial list, that 72-hour, what's a minimum recommendation, and just kind of build from there. This is, like I said, it's not an overnight process. And one of the things that the foundation for infrastructure resilience talks about is, again, this 72-hour, three-day sort of window, hopefully FEMA National Guard, someone's going to show up. But they actually have a term for it, day four. What happens on day four when they don't show up? And even if you've done some preparation, like the federal government is recommending, then what happens? And that's where you get into this, you know, longer, like, well, how much do I really need and what do I need? And how do I have a community and where can I get information and that sort of thing? Again, if we have something like a significant solar flare, help is probably not going to be coming anytime soon because everything may be down, unfortunately. Well, Dave Jim Jordan was talking earlier about the importance of community and really being surrounded by people who you know you're plugged into who can help each other. What do you think we should be doing as a community, Dave, to be prepared? I mean, you're both Kentucky residents or there are specific things more that you'd like to see happen in Kentucky? What do you think about as the mayor of four-right? Well, as I mentioned, I've not had a lot of luck trying to get the state legislature of Kentucky to do some of the smart things that Ohio is doing so far. You know, and... I don't think Ohio's system is perfect, but I think it's very good, and they continue to improve it, and it's certainly a step in the right direction. You know, as far as just community, though, I think more people need to talk about this. I think some of the stigma is going away. Like, here's another headline for you. Space Force's latest Black Skies training event focused on drone threats joint operations. So Black Skies is sort of the term in the industry for the grid is down, and it's not coming back in three days. It might not be coming back for months, then what, right? So again, Hopefully this never happens, Lucy, but I think more people need to talk about this and more people need to understand the very fragile nature of all this technology, which we just continue to rapidly throw out there with, at least in my opinion, little concern for the impact on society when it fails for whatever reason. Natural disaster could knock this stuff out, right?

cyber attack, EMP, solar flare, there's a long list. And there are a lot of smart people out there, like the Army and the Air Force and DHS, CIS, et cetera, who have been warning about this for some time. Yeah. Jim Jordan, is there more you'd like to see communities do to really be ready to work together if disaster strikes? I mean... Like the mayor said, we need to get away from the stigma of, oh, he's a prepper. You know, they're crazy because we're not. You know, there was a TV show on years ago, and I won't name it, but it was for media. You know, it was for entertainment. So they obviously went out and picked. people they found entertaining. And it kind of cast a bad light on people that wanted to be prepared. I know emergency management a few years back was pushing community emergency response teams real big. And I don't know, I know at least in our area, it really didn't take off. I would like to see something like that kind of to brought back. And just people coming together. You know what I mean? Having those conversations, emergency management, having those conversations, your first responders, FEMA, having those conversations with the public that, hey, this stuff is real. It may not happen all the time, but it is likely to happen. At some point in your life, you're going to experience a disaster. Are you prepared to handle that disaster if we're not available to come save you? So here's an example too, Lucy, from Smithsonian Magazine. How prepared are we for a rare and powerful solar event? A coronal mass ejection could knock out power and disrupt communication on Earth. This is from last year. And, you know, I think Jim Jordan's right. We need more community initiatives. And even if this never comes, if people just got together and talked and worked together, that would be a win for the community as a whole, you know? Even if the day never comes that you have to do any of it. You know, you implement this stuff. And I hope it doesn't. But the threat is real. I think people are kind of waking up to that. And I think of it like the old airplane thing, right? If I don't put my mask on first, I can't help you if I'm not prepared. So. Well, I've been talking with B-Ready owner, Jim Jordan Parrish, an entrust IT, cybersecurity consultant. Dave Hatter, thank you both so much for your time today. Thank you. You've been listening to Cincinnati Edition on WVXU. Our producer is Selena Reeder. Associate producer is Harper Carlton. Technical director is Carlos Lopez Cornew. And Rob Fetter has composed our theme music. If you miss our program live, you can find Cincinnati Edition wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lucy May. Thank you so much for listening.