The Terminology of Disaster Terms and How They Define It

Life is full of unpredictable events and there’s nothing we can do about it. Bad things happen to people for no particular reason. BULL!
These are the terms used to explain how to understand disasters and how they happen.

1. DEFINITION: Shit Happens : life is full of unpredictable events and there’s nothing we can do about it. Bad things happen to people for no particular reason.

2. BULL

3. The Donner Party: Social Disintegration

4. DEFINITION: Catastrophe The final event of the dramatic action, especially of a tragedy. An event causing great and often sudden damage or suffering; a disaster. Utter failure.

5. The Challenger: Organizational Failure

6. DEFINITION: The Rule of 7 Rarely does a disaster happens in isolation or as the result of a single event. It usually requires a minimum of 7 things to go wrong in order for a catastrophe. And one of those 7 is always human error.

7. The St. Francis Dam: Engineering Failure

8. DEFINITION: Cascade Event An event prior to a catastrophe that contributes to the actual catastrophe, but by itself, is not catastrophic.   DEFINITION: Final Event A catastrophic event. The culmination of at least six cascade events.

9. The Sinking of the Sultana: Greed

10. DEFINITION: Delusion Event A cascade event that doesn’t lead to a final event. If we succeed at something that should have failed, we’re fooled into believing we can keep doing it.

11. DEFINITION: Delusion Event It’s driving with the check engine light on and nothing bad happens. It deludes you into thinking the light isn’t important.

12. Custer: Leadership Failure

13. DEFINITION Delusional mindset Someone who has had success far beyond that which should be the norm, helped with an abnormal amount of luck, believes the abnormal is normal and that their streak will continue indefinitely.

14. Special Forces Training

15. DEFINITION: Lose-lose scenarios This is a training scenario where there is no ‘right’ solution. The goal is to examine thought processes and decision making.

16. Pearl Harbor: False Assumptions

17. DEFINITION: Catastrophe mindset : Expecting that what can go wrong; will.

18. The Last Czar: Leadership Failure

19. DEFINITION: Cascade Stopper : A person designated as the check and balance on a leader, especially under stressful situations.

20. DEFINITION: 10th Man : A person designated to take the opposite point of view to the majority and to argue for it.

21. Seven Ways to Prevent Catastrophes 1. Have a Special Ops preparation mindset 2. Focus by utilizing both big picture & detail thinkers 3. Conduct Special Forces Area Studies 4. Use the Special Forces CARVER formula 5. Have a “10 th man” 6. Conduct After Action Reviews 7. Write and USE Standing Operating Procedures (SOPs)

22. Are you interested in a presentation about various catastrophes and how the cascade events could have been prevented? Events covered range from human-machine interface, to leadership, to communication, cost-cutting, engineering, group think, perseverance, systematic failure, and more? Catastrophes are cascade events culminating in disastrous chaos. War is chaos. Special Forces is the most elite unit trained for a variety of combat situations. What makes Special Forces elite is our mindset and preparation. Are you interested in a presentation on how to use Special Forces tactics, techniques and mental attitude to help your organization anticipate and prevent potential catastrophes? Please email [email protected] Summary

23. More Free Information I constantly update free, downloadable slideshows like this on my web site for preparation and survival and other topics. Use Your Camera on this QR Code

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25. This book walks you through your personal situation, your home, and your Area of Operations.

26. AMAZON

27. New York Times bestselling author, is a graduate of West Point and former Green Beret. He’s had over 80 books published, including the #1 bestselling series Green Berets, Time Patrol, Area 51, and Atlantis. He’s sold over 5 million books. He was born in the Bronx and has traveled the world. He’s lived on an island off the east coast, an island off the west coast, in the Rocky Mountains, the Smoky Mountains and other places, including time in East Asia studying martial arts. He was an instructor and course developer/writer for years at the JFK Special Warfare Center and School which trains Green Berets and also runs the SERE school: Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape. www.bobmayer.com