◆ LC Emergency Management releases guidance to help you be prepared.

I’m not a world-class procrastinator, but I’m still pretty good. In the army of procrastinators out there (and there is one), I’m not a general, but I’m at least a solid lieutenant––maybe even a colonel. I do have a tragic flaw in my procrastination proclivities though: I believe in emergency preparedness for possible disaster scenarios like forest fires, earthquakes, pandemics––you know, everyday life in 2020, now 2021.

Frankly, the bipolar nature of these two has caused me great consternation, so it was with relief when I saw this week that Lincoln County Emergency Management released guidance on how to prepare for a variety of emergency situations.

I have another confession to make: I suffer from attention-deficit disorder. Alas, my internal drive towards preparedness is derailed not only by procrastination, but by a lack of ability to focus. The memorandum released this week vastly overestimates my abilities.

While only about a page long, it had a list of websites to read, resources to follow, phone numbers to call that seemed a bit much, so as I hesitated over the edge of the trash can to summarily dispose of the aforementioned memorandum (Sorry, emergency management guys…) I had a thought. I’m either too old, busy, tired, confused, attention-deficient, inebriated or a combination of the above to get this done by myself. Call them and get help. So I called.

Emergency management information officer, Stephen Malik, shared with me what he considers some of the most likely scenarios we would have to cope with in this area.

I discussed several issues with Malik. In the end, he could clearly see the dire need caused by my many phobias, took pity on me, and volunteered to walk me through how to put together a respectable emergency plan––we’re not talking doomsday prepper here, just your run-of-the-mill emergency bug-out plan if a fire comes over the hill or an earthquake knocks down communications for a few hours.

Malik and his colleagues will coach me (and you) step by step on how to proceed. He has prepared a set of simple tasks for me (and you) that should only take a few minutes each week to accomplish.

I will do each step and write about it––if it’s easy or hard, if I have problems, how long it takes, etc. in a series of weekly articles cleverly titled Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, etc. until he has finished with me (and you) and we’re ready to face what may come with robust confidence and precision.

Do the steps for a few months. You’ll have a solid plan for emergencies.

If you join us in each weekly installment in the paper and online, within a reasonably short amount of time, you sergeants, privates, majors in the procrastination army can still be prepared.

So please join SVI Media and Lincoln County Emergency Preparedness for next week’s installment––Step 1––on how to get in the loop on emergency communications. If you have problems with any of the steps, you can email me: Layne@svinews.com and together, Stephen Malik and I will work individually to help you as needed.

I don’t know about you, but my anxiety syndrome is subsiding already.