One of my favorite expressions is, "Life is what happens when you've made other plans." I was vividly reminded of this expression on Thursday, September 9, when my crew and I were planning to tape a television show with East Palo Alto's Chief of Police Ron Davis and San Mateo's Chief of Police Susan Manheimer.
When it was time for the taping to start, Davis was present, but Manheimer had not arrived. We wondered where she was and whether something had happened. Unfortunately, something disastrous had happened. This time, life intervened in the form of a huge gas explosion that took place in San Bruno. At the time, we had been told in the studio that a plane had crashed. It was just this past February, seven months ago, that a small plane did crash in East Palo Alto. You can read my blog about the event in the Feb 19, 2010 blog entry.
Well, the day after the taping with Davis and the audience members in the studio, it was learned that Chief Manheimer was several blocks from the studio when she was informed of the explosion and she turned around and proceeded to San Bruno.
We now know that it was a horrendous explosion that completely destroyed 37 homes, led to at least four deaths, and turned hundreds of lives completely upside down. It's absolutely unthinkable the way lives can be destroyed and changed forever in one moment in time.
As life would have it, this Saturday, September 18 is Disaster Preparedness Day in San Mateo County. Coming so soon after the enormous disaster in San Bruno, this event will provide us with another opportunity not only to think about the unthinkable, but to try to prepare for it. Given that the unthinkable is never far away and can happen at anytime, as we've seen with the San Bruno explosion and the East Palo Alto plane crash, it makes sense to do what we can to prepare for what we don't want to think about and don't want to happen.
Just as life is what happens, when we've made other plans, those involved in these two recent disasters can testify that disasters happen, too, in spite of whatever plans we've made. But as ironic as it sounds, while we don't know when the next disaster will happen, just as we prepare for events in our lives, we really should start preparing for disastrous events, too.
So, how many disasters will it take to happen around us for some of us to start the preparations? Who knows? But click on this link for more information about the San Mateo Disaster Preparedness Day event. Perhaps I'll see you there.
By the way, we did complete the taping of the television show I mentioned earlier. The show is called Redefining the Role of the Police, and you can see an excerpt from it here.
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