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The Last Musketeer

Posted on May 12, 2015November 27, 2025 by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

One of the gifts I have been given in life is the friendship of some remarkable people who have been kind enough to share their wisdom with me. One of the most remarkable was my friend and mentor, Roy Kite, who died last Friday.

I first met Roy when I was assigned to FEMA as a military reservist in 1989, shortly before the Loma Prieta earthquake. As my division director, Roy activated me during the earthquake and I worked for him for a time as a military officer and then a civilian reservist. He also introduced me to a man who would become one of my best friends, the late Ken Chin. At the end of my tour, Roy looked at me and said quietly, “You know, I have an opening in my division. You should think about applying for it.”

I decided to accept Roy’s invitation and joined FEMA in 1990, a decision that changed not only my profession but my life. Roy became not only my friend but my mentor as well. He helped guide my career and provided me with opportunities to grow as an emergency manager. He taught me some personal lessons as well. Whenever things would get too much for me, I’d seek his counsel. Roy had the gift of remaining calm in any crisis. No matter how angry he got, I never in all our time together heard him raise his voice, use profanity, or berate a subordinate. He taught me the true meaning of “grace under pressure”.

Over the years, I came became part of a very special team – Roy served as the Federal Coordinating Officer, Ken handled administration and logistics, and I was responsible for planning and operations. I’ve lost count of the many disasters we worked together but I think it was something in the neighborhood of fourteen, both large and small. There was a special bond between the three of us and even after we left FEMA we remained close. The last time I saw Roy was at Ken’s funeral, where we toasted our friend and reminisced about “the good old days”.

In my book, I quoted Sir Isaac Newton’s comment about seeing further because he stood on the shoulders of giants. Without a doubt, Roy Kite was one of the giants in my life and I owe him more than I can ever repay. I shall miss him greatly.

Emergency Planners Are The Same The World Over

Posted on April 29, 2015November 27, 2025 by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

To many in the United States, the recent earthquake in Nepal was a news item that generated momentary sympathy but didn’t have much impact. It didn’t even make the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, although the death of a single American climber did on the day after the temblor. As the days go on, the story will eventually fade away like so many others. After all, Nepal is a long way off and not a major player on the world stage.

But not for me.

In 2003, my last active duty assignment was to a civil affairs team reviewing US military contingency plans for responding to an earthquake in Nepal. As the subject matter expert on earthquake planning, I met with a number of local scientists, government officials, and representatives of both public and private response organizations in Kathmandu and the surrounding area.

Emergency managers are the same the world over. The people I met in Nepal were as dedicated and professional as any others I have met and their seismologists are among the best in the world. We also shared the same frustrations over lack of resources and support for disaster planning. What was different was the environment in which we operated.

Imagine that 90% of your population lived in rural areas so remote that even helicopters had trouble getting in. Imagine that all your relief supplies had to be carried in on your back or using pack animals. Imagine a world where communications systems we take for granted don’t work or work sporadically, so you have little information on which to prioritize your relief efforts.

Take it a bit further. Kathmandu is in many ways an urbane and cosmopolitan city. But it is also an ancient one built of mud bricks, where you sometimes have to turn sideways to move from one neighborhood to another. At the time of my visit, building codes were non-existent and there was resistance to their implementation. Response resources are extremely limited. Add to this a political situation that has left the country without any real leadership for years, resulting in a lack of prioritization for emergency planning.

This is the reality for the emergency planners in Nepal.

The good news is that help is coming from all over the world. The bad news is that there is little infrastructure available to manage the flood of relief supplies and workers, a paradox that we all face in a disaster. The weeks and months ahead will be tough ones for my colleagues in Nepal and they’ll need all the support we can give them.

Energy Conservation and Cognitive Dissonance

Posted on April 23, 2015November 27, 2025 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment

One of the terms that sticks with me from my college psychology classes is “cognitive dissonance.” Cognitive dissonance is the stress created when you try to hold two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values simultaneously, or are given information that conflicts with your existing beliefs, ideas or values. I think I’m so fond of the term because anyone who has ever worked for the government is confronted with this on a daily basis.

Take the latest word from the California Public Utilities Commission. It seems our efforts at energy conservation have been so effective that some folks are actually paying less than what it costs to produce the little electricity they use. In effect, they are being subsidized by the large consumers of electrical power.

To address this inequality, the PUC is proposing a new rate structure that will set a fixed monthly minimum charge and eliminate multiple rate tiers. The proposal also includes time-of-use rates where rates would rise with demand. This would return the rate structure to something similar to what it was before the energy crisis in 2000-2001.

The proposal sounds fair on paper until one considers the actual impact. Consumers who have implemented energy-efficient practices will see rates increase while heavy users will see their rates decrease. Incentives for conservation via rate tiers would be eliminated, potentially harming the burgeoning solar power industry and slowing the transition to clean energy.

It doesn’t help that public trust in the PUC is at an all-time low due to reports of mismanagement, lack of leadership, and cozy relationships with the utilities the PUC is supposed to oversee. Not surprisingly, those same utilities are strongly in favor of the new rate structure.

So this is a classic case of cognitive dissonance: encourage conservation on the one hand but reward those who don’t conserve on the other. Is your head hurting yet?

Realistic Earthquake Preparedness

Posted on April 14, 2015November 27, 2025 by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

This Saturday is April 18^th, the 108^th anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fires. It’s a time when we reflect on the earthquake risk in the Bay Area and do some public service announcements to get folks to prepare.

Too bad you’re not listening.

Yes, I’m talking to YOU! You know that being informed, making a kit, and making a plan is what you should be doing. But since we both know you’re not going to do it, let me give you some more realistic advice about earthquakes.

Here's the good news. You really don't need to worry about earthquakes. Here's why:

You’re not going to die. The odds of you dying in an earthquake are actually pretty low, given our building codes. However, you’ll probably be injured because you forgot about non-structural hazards like heavy mirrors, filing cabinets, lamp fixtures, and such. You’ll probably be standing in a doorway or looking for a void spot rather than doing duck, cover, and hold. Either that or you’ll forget to keep shoes and a flashlight by your bed and hurt yourself in the dark walking over broken stuff. Where’s that first aid kit when you need it?
You’re not going to starve to death. It takes about two weeks for the average person to begin to starve to death. Of course, if you have medical issues that require you to eat regularly, start raiding your pantry and hope you’ve got enough on hand until feeding stations get set up. And don’t expect haute cuisine and large portions when they are.
You’re not going to die of thirst. Water is your most serious concern – you’ve got about three days before things start getting really bad. Stress and fear will also make your feel extremely thirsty. Fortunately, every home comes with a 30 to 50 gallon supply of water in your water heater. Wait – you did strap it down as required by the building code and you do know how to isolate it from contamination (shutting it off from the main supply), right? No? Then you’re going to get real thirsty until water distribution begins.
You’re not going to be alone. People are at their best in a disaster. You will be helped by people you never expected to be helpful. Neighbors will help neighbors and total strangers will volunteer services and resources. And, criticize it all you like, but we have the best response system in the world. There will be mistakes and screw-ups and it will take time to organize but help will come. It’s too bad you won’t be able to help out because you’ll be a victim, not a volunteer.

Is this getting through to you? You don’t have to do a whole lot. Don’t want a kit? No problem. Don’t build one. Don’t want to do formal planning? Fine. But at least educate yourself on earthquake safety, learn how to shut off your utilities, and make sure your home is safe. Just doing these three things can mean the difference between being a victim and being a survivor.

What is a Community? A Tail from the Dog Park (sort of!)

Posted on April 2, 2015November 27, 2025 by Lucien Canton | Posted in Tails From The Dog Park, Weblogs

A typical morning at the dog park

In February I wrote about the importance of community and the importance of a sense of belonging. One of our dog park regulars read the article and pointed out that we had developed our own small community right there in the dog park.

This got me to thinking about the nature of community. Like so many things in life, we tend to think monolithically. That is we think about THE community without necessarily recognizing that the larger “community” is itself made up of numerous smaller communities and that we are members of many communities, not just one.

Take our group at the dog park. Do you really consider a group of strangers who happen to walk their dogs at the same time and place each day a community? Probably not. But over time, that group of strangers has somehow become a group of friends, some of us quite close. We’ve shared the highs and lows of our life, we’ve helped each other out when help was needed, and we’ve had our little spats and made up. We’ve shared movies and books, attended openings of new business ventures, invited each other to social activities – what else would you call this if not a community?

Some of us have even gone so far as to cross over into other communities or create new ones. One new friend became interested in my hobby and is now an active part of our local group. Two other friends share an interest in creating dried food products. Another friend is working on a new business and uses the group as a sounding board for ideas and advice on marketing.

Community is not just about friendship, although it is friendship that binds the community together. It’s really about knowing that you can reach out to the community when you’re in need, with the unspoken assumption that you will contribute when others are in need.

And to think this all came about because we shared a single common interest in dogs!

Are We Ready?

Posted on March 25, 2015November 27, 2025 by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

It's always the same question, "Are we ready?" Over the years I've heard it from the media, from elected officials, from CEO's, from non-profit groups – just about everyone. Most recently I was asked the question by a member of the audience as I was briefing on a plan I had helped develop for a religious institution. My answer is always the same, "Ready for what?"

Emergency planning is more art than science and merely developing an emergency plan doesn't mean you're ready for anything. There will be certain events that you can handle and there will those of such magnitude that it requires national intervention. So the question, "Are we ready?" is essentially meaningless.

A better question is, "Are we better prepared than we were?" This is a question I can answer by telling you what has been done and what you plan to do in the future. It gets to the truth behind emergency preparedness: it's a process of continuous improvement, not an end result. Becoming fixated on a particular product or result (if we do X, then we will be ready) leads you to a false sense of security once you achieve that result.

The simple fact is that you're never going to be completely prepared – that's why we call them disasters. Instead, strive to be just a bit better prepared through small, achievable projects. Focus on the basics that are often overlooked, such as inventorying your assets or identifying critical business functions. Consider simple mitigation measures in your home or business. Take community emergency response team (CERT) or other survival skill training.

Take care of the small things and you'll be surprised at how much better prepared you'll be.

Reputational Risk and PG&E: A Cautionary Tale

Posted on March 10, 2015November 27, 2025 by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant – Photo: CA OES

Trust, whether in personal relationships or in business, is easy to lose and hard to regain. Once lost, the effects snowball to the point where issues that might have been ignored now become highly visible and increase the damage done to one's reputation. The most recent reputational crisis from the Pacific Gas and Electric Company is a good case study of this effect.

Starting in 2008, PG&E replaced the steam generators and reactor vessel heads at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant on the Central California Coast. Licensing for the plant required a test of the new equipment using a scenario involving an earthquake and a loss of coolant. Instead, PG$E used two separate scenarios, one involving and earthquake and the other a loss of coolant. The mistake was discovered in 2011 during an internal safety analysis and PG&E notified the cognizant agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. PG&E engineers evaluated the new equipment and felt that it was seismically safe. The Commission accepted PG&E's findings.

In another time this incident would have most likely gone largely unremarked. PG&E found identified the problem, verified the safety of the new equipment, and reported the incident as required. Indeed, this incident only came to light in December of last year during hearings on Diablo Canyon held by Senator Barbara Boxer. However, following the explosion of a gas pipeline in San Bruno, California, in 2010 that killed 8 people, PG&E's safety practices came under intense scrutiny. Faulty record keeping, cost-cutting, and poor management decisions contrived to create the image of a company that placed shareholder return and profit above public safety.

As if this wasn't enough, evidence has emerged that PG&E has a too-close relationship with the California Public Utilities Commission, the state commission that oversees PG&E, forcing the resignation of the head of the commission. Similar criticism has been raised against the NRC by Senator Boxer.

PG&E now has a reputation for cutting corners wherever possible, barely meeting minimum standards, and covering up its greed by suborning its regulators. The incident at Diablo Canyon is now front page news, further eroding the public's confidence in the utility and providing leverage for those seeking to close the plant. Coming on top of the other negative revelations of the past few years, this incident compounds PG&E's reputational problems. Whether the utility will ever be able to regain the public's trust is debatable.

The Killer Hiding In Your Home!

Posted on February 27, 2015November 27, 2025 by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

Growing up in sunny San Francisco, we always had glass jars along the window ledge above our kitchen sink. They held the usual school assignments such as sprouting beans on blotter paper and avocado seeds supported by toothpicks. We also had jars that were catch-alls for all the little buttons, pins, rubber bands and such that turn up in a kitchen. Little did we know that we were letting a potential killer into our home.

From London comes a story that will change how you view those glass jars. Fire inspectors believe that the sun’s rays refracting through a glass jar on a bedroom window ledge was responsible for a devastating fire that severely damaged a family’s home and killed their dog. Damage was so severe that it will take a year to repair.

What are we to do? Can we rely on the media to educate the public about this new risk in their usual calm and measured fashion? What about a social media campaign that can go viral and really get the word out? Perhaps we should consider legislation banning jars on window ledges and authorize the authorities to enter our homes without notice to enforce these laws. Surely corporate America can devise monitoring devices to help with enforcement. Better still, go to the source and ban the manufacture of glass jars. After all, the manufacturer is the one who is really responsible here.

Sounds silly to over-react to such a small risk, doesn't it? Yet this is precisely what we seem to do every time we face a new risk. Case in point was the recent Ebola “crisis” where people with no connection to the affected countries were convinced that they had been infected somehow.

I don’t mean to minimize or make light of a tragedy and I do believe that it’s prudent to take reasonable precautions against even such small risks. But the simple fact is that we tend to over-inflate risks and have an unrealistic expectation that we can live in a risk free world. The less we understand a risk, the more we fear it. This is why you’re probably not too concerned about glass jars on your window ledge but are uneasy about something like Ebola. And why you read blog posts with provocative titles.

So how do you keep your sanity? Gather the facts and understand the difference between real and perceived risk. When you filter predictions of disaster through this lens, you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to put risks into perspective. Focus on real risks, not imaginary ones.

The Importance of Community

Posted on February 12, 2015November 27, 2025 by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

The recent tragic death of Kayla Mueller in Syria reminded me yet again of how interconnected we are and how important community is in time of crisis.

I didn't know Kayla or anything about her. But this week I found out that we were both members of the same social group, an organization that considers its members as all part of an extended family. I learned about Kayla from another friend in our local group who had known her and was deeply affected by her death. We honored her at a recent meeting, partly because she was one of us but also to help our friend deal with his grief.

This is not unusual for our group. We have developed customs for dealing with the loss of our members that allow us to share grief and, in that sharing, mitigate some of its sting. More importantly, we try to reach out to any member in need. We have a volunteer emergency coordinator who contacts any members affected by disasters, whether large or small, and identifies needs that are not being met locally. Sometimes we help on an organizational level by replacing lost regalia, documents, or equipment; sometimes it is on a personal level with gift cards and donations. Our northern California group recently raised over $30,000 to fund a much-needed operation for one of our members.

I also know that we are not the only organization that does this. Over the years, I have encountered many, many organizations that give aid in time of trouble. In such times, community becomes all important, reminding us that we are not alone and have friends who will help. As effective as Federal, state, and local governments are (and don't believe everything you read – we have one of the most sophisticated response systems in the world here), they can never come close to matching the support provided by close-knit communities in time of crisis. The government can only share material goods and services; community groups offer a sense of belonging, of being part of something good. We are at our very best when helping each other in crisis.

Farewell, Rod McKuen

Posted on February 3, 2015November 27, 2025 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment

I was saddened to hear that Rod McKuen had died last week. Though not really well known now and almost universally trashed by critics at the height of his fame, McKuen was a popular poet and singer/songwriter back "when I wore a younger man's clothes." I'm not a big fan of blank verse and even I have to admit that McKuen's poetry is not the best but there was something in them that spoke to me. It may have been the connection to the Bay Area – McKuen grew up in Oakland, CA, and his second book was titled Stanyan Street and Other Sorrows, a street that was important to me growing up. Whatever the reason, I learned quite a bit about life and love from his poetry and songs.

Mckuen's life was not easy. He was an illegitimate child who had no idea who his father was and grew up with an alcoholic stepfather. McKuen ran away from home at 11. One of the ways he coped with life was to keep a journal that eventually became source material for his poetry and songs. His obsession with locating his true father was also, I believe, a source of inspiration. He eventually found the answers he sought and chronicled his search in his autobiographical book, Finding My Father.

If Rod McKuen's life teaches us anything, it is that adversity and challenge can some times lead us to do incredible things. How we face challenges determines who we are. This is why I have so little patience for those who try to eliminate all risk from life. If you risk nothing, you stagnate; you fail to grow; you stop living. As McKuen wrote:

It's nice sometimes
to open up the heart a little
and let some hurt come in.
It proves you're still alive.

― Rod McKuen, Listen to the Warm