Prepper President
A leader who prepares their country for trouble before it arrives.
A "Prepper" is someone who prepares for trouble of all kinds — gathering skills and supplies so that when disaster comes, people don't have to suffer through it unprepared.
A Prepper President is a leader who makes sure the warehouses are full of disaster supplies before the disaster arrives. That takes three roles at once: a Scout, a Marine, and a Caregiver.
The Mottos
Rosalynn Carter often observed that caregiving touches everyone eventually — we've either done it, we're doing it now, we'll do it someday, or we'll need it ourselves. — Paraphrased from Rosalynn Carter
Margaret Mead argued that world-changing action has never come from anyone but a small, committed group of people who genuinely cared. — Paraphrased from Margaret Mead, Anthropologist
Can you think of leaders who are the opposite of a Prepper President?
Restore vs. Upgrade
FEMA's rules say that after a disaster, the agency will pay to restore what was lost — but not to upgrade it. After Hurricane Maria's catastrophic damage to Puerto Rico, FEMA spent far more restoring the island's old, fragile power grid than it would have cost to upgrade it to something sturdier.
We'd like to see FEMA's mandate shift from "Restore" to "Upgrade" — paired with more advance preparation, so less has to be rebuilt in the first place.
- 01
Fund upgrades, not just restorations. Rebuilding to the old standard guarantees the same failure next time.
- 02
Invest before the disaster, not just after. Pre-positioned supplies and hardened infrastructure cost less than emergency response.
- 03
Reward situational awareness. Regions with a known risk profile — fire, flood, storm — should be required to plan for it, not surprised by it.
Experience Stories
I visited a place in California in 1980. Every new arrival got the fire prevention lecture first thing — because in 1976, every building there had burned to the ground. After that fire, they rebuilt with fire-resistant structures, added fire hoses throughout the grounds, and made sure everyone received at least basic fire-awareness training. They never wanted to go through that again — so they upgraded, not just rebuilt.
When disaster scenes show up in the media, the honest answer to "who was in charge of preventing this?" is usually no one. And yet people act surprised, even after countless warnings about pandemics, fires, floods, famine, and war.
Situational awareness means noticing what's actually happening around you and being ready to respond. A region with dry Santa Ana winds, months without rain, and a known fire history has no excuse for being caught flat-footed. See our related idea: LA Build Back Better.
Trauma Intelligence (Trauma IQ) increases when people experience fires, floods, and every other kind of disaster. What is your Trauma IQ? See our related idea: Warnings Ignored.