The Governor of New York in his State of the State address says he intends to propose several recommendations from a disaster preparedness commission to help the state better cope with major storms in the future. Governor Cuomo, who has had to cope with the aftermath of two major storms in his two years in office, Irene in 2011 and Sandy in late 2012, says the state could be better prepared for climate change – something the governor has said could be the new normal. As an example, the governor says just trying to coordinate emergency supplies, like ordering tens of thousands of generators, devolved into “chaos.”  Let’s hope it gets in action sooner rather than later.

In his 5 Lessons From Hurricane Sandy For Emergency Preparedness (a guest post written by Jaime Ellertson on Forbes.com), Jaime outlines five strategies that companies and municipalities can implement to better prepare for crisis situations.  He says during Hurricane Sandy, organizations and municipalities delivered more than 10 million alerts; only 10% of those alerts were sent using SMS, with 20% sen via email. His lessons need to be heeded.

Finally, FEMA has come out with a Commit to Emergency Preparedness in 2013 news release.  In the aftermath of active and devastating weather events across the US; flooding in the Southeast as a result of Tropical Storm Debby and Hurricane Isaac, wildfires across the Midwest, and Hurricane Sandy which devastated parts of the Northeast and was the second-largest Atlantic storm on record, FEMA is going on the offensive with a campaign to Resolve to be Ready in 2013.  This article gives tips and links provided by FEMA on emergency preparedness and encourage us all to make this a great New Years resolution.

Looking back is a great way to prepare to look forward.