Geography Is Not Destiny

World Geography, Not Predestination

When serving as the keynote speaker at the annual entrepreneurs’ award luncheon of the Colorado Springs Small Business Development Center, I spoke of the risk of Colorado’s favorable geography. Disaster-prone locales tend to have heightened awareness of risk threats, whether it is small businesses in California attuned to earthquake risks or Gulf Coast small businesses concerned about hurricanes. The happy fact that Colorado Springs is not located on a geological fault line or a coast can give rise to complacency. Consider, for example, that in any given year, 30% of the areas that flood have never before flooded and are not located in flood plains. While flood is a much more significant risk than either hurricane or earthquake, it is not this peril, but the underlying principle is that it is the everyday risk that is the more imminent threat. Today, a citizen journalist in Colorado posted on the CNN website a video of a tornado in his community. So what is the take home message? Focus on preparing for the everyday disaster, such as human errors and power outages, and this way you will gradually build resilience for the more serious disasters. This is critical because you cannot always predict on the basis of your locale the more severe disaster that will threaten you. It may be a flood or tornado that has never before struck your community.