Many years ago I heard the story about Rick Rescorla, director of security for Morgan Stanley. In the late 90s, Rescorla believe the World Trade Center was a prime target for terrorists and believed it the most likely method would be to fly a plane into the towers. He tried getting the company to move to a different location, and when they refused, he had all employees practice evacuation drills every three months. Rescorla ran very strict drills, forcing even reluctant high-powered executives to evacuate down 44 flights of stairs; timing and lecturing any employees that were too slow. On September 11, 2001, when the first tower was hit, the Port Authority told everybody in the building to stay in their offices but Rescorla ignored the orders and evacuated all employees. He ended up saving all but 13 out of 2700 employees.
Nearly 10 years earlier, Rescorla had informed the Port Authority that terrorists might set off a bomb near a load bearing pillar for the World Trade Center and his warnings were ignored. After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Rescorla learned to not rely on authorities to help. He believed that one should empower themselves.
Since then we have seen different catastrophes strike around the world whether it’s a tsunami in Asia, flooding in Texas, or a financial crisis. I’ve seen time and again people are unprepared. I realized that bad things happen to good people and sometimes when life is good you forget how much you can lose.
I don’t believe the world will end tomorrow. I invest for retirement and make plans for the future like anybody else but I’m always ready for the worst case scenario.
Preparing for a catastrophe may seem like a daunting task but it is one that I undertook to protect my family. Like the majority of people, I used to live in an urban area and I realized that if there was a collapse of the infrastructure I would be woefully unprepared. I didn’t want my family to be unprepared, so I started learning about prepping and survival skills to be ready for different scenarios.
I began doing research online as well as meeting other preppers and started building out my prepping supplies. I spent a lot of time living in Puerto Rico where the infrastructure is not dependable and residents tend to be self-reliant. Over time I created my own checklists and system for prepping that I wanted to share with the prepping community.
I would love to share some of the knowledge I’ve gained in hopes that you too will be prepared when the time comes.
“Always be ready” Max