In our efforts to provide information to those who are involved with emergency communications, sometimes we lose sight of the fundamental 'push' that causes us to do this work. Here is a perspective we can all use beneficially.
| "After 28 years of working as a Public Defender, and four years of being trained as a backup Emergency Services PIO, I got called out on my first bonafide disaster: the Mt. Vision fire in Marin County. What I saw there was a beautiful extension of the reason why I became a (often maligned, sometimes hated) Public Defender - people immediately being trusting, focused on a common good, and sharing an instant good will in the midst of a common disaster. I have seen that the softest things in life are the most enduring: |
Disaster response, like criminal justice, deals with broken, sometimes bleeding elements close to life iteself: our homes, our neighbors, sometimes our families and ourselves. The synergistic and sometimes geometrically expanding power of love & caring cannot be modelled in any engineering analysis I have yet encountered (and I, too, hold a degree in the sciences). That's what makes life worth living." Frank Cox /fcox@marin.org, backup PIO, Marin Office Emergency Services. |
(It was on nets-admin@hoshi.cic.sfu.ca, Oct 30 1995.) When asked for permission to quote, Frank's reply included this: "When I first began PIO training I was told 'when things really get crazy get a "shadow"' (RACES Volunteer). They are the only ones who can find out what is going on."
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