Then as we contemplate Thanksgiving Day and cooking the turkey you will find that a Google search of the term, "Turkey Disasters" or "Thanksgiving Disasters" you will find plenty of evidence on how not to cook the turkey. The flaming deep fryer events are particularly spectacular on video.
Which brings me back to how the use of the word disaster has become common. For emergency managers it is part and parcel of our normal lexicon, but so too in the average person's vocabulary. As we see natural disasters and wars dominating our media coverage the use of the term disaster has become common place to describe any number of events that have not gone well, from cooking turkey to failed PowerPoint presentations.
It has become so cheap that we had to come up with the word "catastrophe" to describe something really, really bad. Even I have written about the everyday disasters declared by the President via FEMA that are for the "normal" flooding event. Many of these declared disasters have federal assistance of only a few million dollars. Was it really that big of a "disaster?" Or, was the local and state government just looking for a federal handout since they don't have funds set aside for large scale emergencies or "disasters."
Yes, if you Google Turkey Catastrophes you will get a hit on that term too. Proof that we will need to come up with another term that describes an event that goes way beyond an emergency, disaster or catastrophe--how about Apocalypse? The storm surge was apocalyptic?
May your Thanksgiving be free from turkey and other natural disasters. Holidays are disaster magnets you know!
