Canton on Emergency Management

Emergency Management Solutions - September 2020

Emergency Management Solutions - September 2020

Featured Articles

California Wildfires: Who Is at Fault?

    By Lucien G. Canton

 

Preparedness in the Pandemic Age

    By Timothy "Tim" Riecker

 

Are you ignoring the power of proactive positive crisis communications?

    By Erik Bernstein

 

California Wildfires: Who Is at Fault?

 

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California Wildfires

Who Is at Fault?

It's The End of the World!

In 1978, historian Barbara Tuchman published a book called A Distant Mirror: the Calamitous 14th Century that provided a portrait of Western Europe in the 1300's. Tuchman's premise was that the 14th century in many ways reflected the social upheavals and crises of the 20th Century. Given the calamitous year that has been 2020, Tuchman's comparison is even more relevant today.

The 14th century was indeed a time of tremendous upheaval and people at the time can be forgiven for believing they were living in the end times. The Black Death was ravaging Europe, with one historian estimating that the death toll could have been as high as 60% of the population. The Hundred Years War was being fought between England and France, with unemployed soldiers turning to pillaging the countryside during the brief periods of peace. There were peasant revolts, brought on by starvation and heavy taxation. The Great Schism had sundered the Roman Catholic Church, one of the key unifying elements in medieval culture. The ending of the Medieval Warming Period created unsettled weather conditions that produced droughts, floods, and cold winters resulting in famine. The social order was changing as well, with the collapse of the feudal system and the transition from a subsistence economy to a commercial one.

The 14th century was a bad time, but it was easily rivaled and, some historians would argue eclipsed, by the 6th century. In 536 CE, Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia experienced 18 months of darkness, thought to be caused by an exploding volcano, possibly in Iceland. The pall caused the coldest winter in the past 2300 years and led to widespread crop failures and famine. This was followed by the Plague of Justinian that is believed to have wiped out the equivalent of 50% of the population of Europe over the next two centuries. The combination of the two so weakened the Byzantine Empire that Justinian was unable to reunite the core of the old Roman Empire by retaking Italy, an event that may have had a major impact on European history.

The point here is that, as bad as things got, people survived. The result may not have been what one would have wished, but people survived. The events of the 6th Century produced the Dark Ages, which actually were not so dark and were actually a time of innovation and creativity that is often overlooked. The Carolingian dynasty created a strong, centralized state that produced innovations in architecture, art and education, while Arab scholars made major advances in mathematics and science.   The wars and tribulations of the 14th Century led to the Renaissance and the rise of modern states and  economies. The history of disasters is full of stories of communities that have rebuilt following crisis: San Francisco, Galveston, Chicago, New Orleans. They remind us that all the worlds wisdom can be contained in the phrase. "This to shall pass".

Don't misunderstand me; I am not recommending complacency. In a time of political upheaval, plague, fires, hurricanes, and floods, complacency is the last thing we need. What I do recommend is shaking off depression and taking action to create change. Prepare for crisis; mitigate the potential effects. Above all, be prepared to recover from whatever comes and go on. Remember, as Louis Pasteur said, "Fortune favors the prepared."