Vision to Reality: The Reut Blog

Recently the citizens of Israel received a reminder that they and their families are not ready for a national crisis.

Two weeks ago, the Israeli police conducted a security drill that caused heavy traffic jams and much frustration amongst drivers. The average Israeli driver understands the necessity of training emergency authorities: no one wants a situation in which in crisis emerges and those units find themselves unprepared.

However, the Israeli public and even some journalists wondered why the police didn’t choose to implement the drill differently, in a way that does not affect civil routine. Such criticism misses the point that the exercise exposed – that Israeli civilians lack individual and family preparedness.

The aspiration for a convenient and a minimally disruptive drill is irrelevant to a scenario in which a national crisis affects large segments of the population over extensive parts of the country. In such a crisis, most of us civilians will be caught unprepared, and will most likely be unable to contact our families due to cellular network collapse.

In national crises, the civilians will be the ones to provide the solution. In the case of the Haitian earthquake, for example, while 140 people were rescued from the ruins by the emergency authorities, 200,000 people were rescued by family, friends, and passers-by.

Therefore, emergency drills should not address only the emergency authorities but also the civilians. During the drill, all drivers standing in traffic jams should have asked themselves: What would have happened if it was a real crisis and not a drill? Does my family know what to do? Are we prepared?

The Israeli police and the emergency authorities should train their forces to handle crises. We, the civilians, who stood in traffic jams every week during the second Intifada, need to use opportunities like this drill to prepare our families for future crises.

‘Turning Point 4,’ the big emergency drill planned for May 23-28, is a chance to elevate civil preparedness onto the public agenda.

In March 2010, approximately one hundred representatives from the business sector and civil society attended a round-table meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to inspire and give practical tools to the different representatives in order to implement a ‘Culture of Preparedness’ within their organizations in the lead-up to and during ‘Turning Point 4.’