The Wake Up Call

Every once in a while, you get a jolt of reality that puts your preparation status, or lack thereof, in a new light. Mine hit a few weeks ago when a major wildfire broke out a few miles down the mountain pass from where I live. You’ve probably seen the videos from the national news on the fires in Colorado Springs where at the time of this writing, over 300 homes have been lost. So far mine is not one of them.

After the original ignition, within a matter of hours, more than 35,000 people were told to evacuate their homes with whatever they could gather in 30 minutes. My home on the north slope of Pikes Peak was a few miles up the pass, and we were initially given an early notification before we were included in this grab-and-go exercise.

I knew enough about wildland fire to see my evacuation order coming from the moment the Waldo Canyon fire took off. As I looked around our property (which I had moved into only six weeks before), I saw dead tree limbs, pine needle duff and a host or other highly volatile fuels that I had told myself on at least a dozen occasions I needed to get removed soon. Suddenly it was no longer a “to do list” item, it was a “do right now” item, and I spent most of the next 24 hours trying to make up for months of procrastination.

Then the call came for a mandatory evacuation, and as I sat and watched Pikes Peak disappear under a cloud of wildfire smoke, and the TV announcers track the flames progress toward my home, I began to wonder, what else haven’t I been doing that could erupt on short notice to reveal my lack of readiness.

In all of our discussions on error control and Level III professionalism, we talk about the importance of professional readiness as a life skill and not exclusively a job skill. And there I was, trying to make up for lost time with my future now in the hands of violent and unpredictable environmental factors. This was an important lesson.

Where in your life, at home, at work, or in your other professional and recreational activities are there items that can be done to improve your odds when lightning strikes? Maybe it’s a nagging safety or quality assurance issue you’ve been meaning to look at more deeply, a set of tires that need replacing, an overdue medical checkup or diagnostic examination, or even a business competitor that is about to make a breakthrough that will make your product or service obsolete. Take a few minutes and make the list—and then let me know if this wake up call was of any use to you.

Resiliency is a great thing, but in our fast changing world, readiness is king.