Planning key to disaster survival

Take pictures of your belongings so you have a record of what it looked like before.
Take pictures of your belongings so you have a record of what it looked like before.

CNN’s Bonnie Schneider picked a good time to become a television meteorologist. Since she graduated from Boston University and got her first on-air job, the world has continued to get warmer and extreme weather events have become more common throughout the country.
While they provides rich subject matter, the floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and droughts Schneider follows can be devastating to the communities they hit. When media attention leaves an extreme weather event, the insurance industry is usually arriving on the scene.
On Oct. 15, Schneider will cross paths with executives and claims adjustors when she gives the keynote speech at the First Party Claims Conference at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Warwick. Schneider will touch on many of the subjects in her first book, “Extreme Weather,” and the subject of a new DIY Network show she co-produced called “Last House Standing,” about bad storms and how property owners can deal with them.

PBN: Is the weather really becoming consistently worse right now?
SCHNEIDER: I think it is. If you look at 2011, as an example, which is when I was writing my book, it was an epic year for natural disasters: In terms of tornadoes it was one of the worst ever. [More than] 500 people were killed in tornadoes in 2011. You might think 2012 wasn’t so bad for tornadoes, but we had other extremes: we had the worst draught ever recorded in history. We had some of the worst wildfires in New Mexico. We might not have had the exact same type of extreme weather year to year, but we are seeing more instances of it.

PBN: Of the weather events you’ve covered, what ranks as the most extreme?
SCHNEIDER: A lot of my book includes personal accounts from people in extreme weather events. One is a man who described what it was like to be in the tsunami in Thailand in 2004. Another is a woman in Louisiana who lived through Katrina: her family almost drowned and then they were homeless and had to survive. In La Conchita, Calif., in 2005 there was a deadly mudslide and I interviewed a young woman who was 18 years old at the time and survived an entire home collapsing on her. It was just a miracle that a neighbor heard her muffled cries beneath the earth and dug her out. She was calm talking about it, but her father broke down, because he had dropped her off the night before and blamed himself.

PBN: How about the worst storm you have had to endure personally in front of the camera?
SCHNEIDER: I was the morning meteorologist for five years at News 12 on Long Island and they had me out in the field three days in the week. Often I was standing by the side of the Long Island Expressway in a brutal nor’easter. I remember people calling the newsroom and saying, “ ‘Get that girl off the side of the road – are you crazy?’ ”

PBN: When people ask you if they should expect things to get even worse, what do you tell them?
SCHNEIDER: Just in the seven years I have been here [at CNN], there seem to be more bad storms and they seem to be happening in places that don’t typically see them. An example is the two tornadoes we had recently in New York City. I grew up in the New York area and I don’t remember tornadoes. The tornadoes we had in Tuscaloosa, Ala., in 2011 – that isn’t a region that is used to seeing F4 tornadoes. Even Hurricane Irene was a rude awakening last year that hurricanes can hit the Northeast.

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PBN: For the Northeast, are hurricanes the greatest threat here or are their other things that actually do more damage?
SCHNEIDER: I would think that nor’easters are a big threat because not only are we talking about heavy snow, the wind damage is so severe. When I was in Boston, they often sent me out to the coast after storms and the beach erosion is terrible after a nor’easter.

PBN: Do you believe climate change is causing this rise in extreme weather?
SCHNEIDER: I have heard both sides of it and how the climate is changing and there is evidence of that. The debate is over how much man is causing that. What I am a proponent of is being prepared for extreme weather.

PBN: So knowing that the weather is getting wilder, what can homeowners do to prepare themselves and minimize damage? SCHNEIDER: One is that people should have survival kits ready. I am launching my own line of survival gear that is designed for women – it is called Survival Girl and it will be available in 2013. It is important to have survival gear when you are traveling and at home – and to make sure everyone knows where it is. Everyone should be onboard and communicate. It is very important to have a family disaster plan. Often there are multiple generations in a home, so sometimes you have someone who is older and is going to have trouble getting around. What if they knock on your door and tell you there is a wildfire and you have to get out? Other things are when there are wind storms, such as hurricanes and nor’easters, it will often pick up objects, make them airborne and that will cause injuries and potential destruction to your home. So picking up any loose items from your backyard, like toys and extra furniture. It only takes a few minutes, but it could save you thousands of dollars in damages.
Another thing is putting brackets up in your garage door. When it comes to hurricanes, the biggest entry for winds is through the garage door. So you want to try to have your garage door as secure as possible.

PBN: From your experience talking to people in disasters, is there anything that the insurance industry can do better after an extreme weather event?
SCHNEIDER: I can’t speak to the industry, but for the people who hold policies, you need to find out very specifically in advance what is covered and what isn’t. You always hear after a storm that people assume they have coverage for things they don’t. You want to back up on a hard drive, maybe in another location, all your important documents and policy information. You don’t want that to get ruined in a flood. And I think it is important to video or take pictures of your belongings so you have a record of what it looked like before. These are proactive things people can do that I am sure insurance companies would recommend. •

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