Disasters: where they find us.

Preparing for a natural disaster starts with a thorough understanding of the geography of your particular location, as well as its weather patterns. Early planning must also look beyond the disaster to examine the possible consequences of such a disaster. While no disaster/emergency preparedness planners like to think of the bleakest outcome (i.e., mass fatalities), building in solutions at the outset of a plan alleviates having to figure them out in the middle of an earthquake, a fire, or a hurricane. January's earthquake in Haiti holds lessons for anyone who is part of a first responder or healthcare profession, and those lessons have been hard ones for the world to learn.