Andy: This is the Secure Family Podcast.
Welcome friend, I'm Andy Murphy.
This show is all about empowering parents to protect themselves and their family.
I believe that security is the foundation of happiness.
I want your family to be safe and happy.
If that sounds like something that resonates with you, subscribe to
the show because there is always something new to talk about.
The information that I share on this podcast is for general
information purposes only.
My goal is to empower you to make safer decisions for yourself and
your family because our safety is our own responsibility.
Today, I get to chat with an emergency preparedness expert and we're going to
redefine family disaster preparedness.
All of that and more coming up on The Secure Family Podcast.
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My guest on the show today is a man known as Disaster patrick.
Patrick is not the typical disaster expert.
No doom and gloom, no scare tactics.
Just real actionable insights from the forefront of the world's
toughest disaster challenges.
Between setting the world record for 28 hours of nonstop CPR, building emergency
shelters with Lego blocks, and evacuating 240 cats in 90 minutes, Disaster Patrick's
mission is to push the edge of what's possible in preparing for a disaster.
Patrick has a great saying, prepare for a disaster and you'll never experience one.
Here's my conversation with Disaster Patrick.
So Patrick, thank you so much for taking time outta your day
to talk with me and my audience.
Introduce yourself to everybody.
Patrick: Well, I'm the person that's going to help you rethink the
way you do disaster preparedness.
I've been doing disaster planning for over 20 years, and I think that
the way that most people do disaster preparedness, is completely wrong.
So I decided after a long career, um, as a disaster professional
in private service, I decided to become a full-time content creator.
So now I create videos that show people disaster planning.
Doesn't have to be hard, it doesn't have to be difficult.
It can be fun and it can be interesting.
And the way people call me is Disaster Patrick.
Andy: That's a great, that's, that's great, man.
Um, Given your experience, uh, you know, with families and with people,
there's always that one person in the family who's very, like,
preparedness minded and it seems like nobody else is.
So how do you help the preparedness minded person get the whole
family to buy into the plan?
I try to make it fun.
One of the things I'm doing this year, for example, and I'm doing it
live on YouTube, is I am building the world's first, very first FEMA rated.
Hurricane shelter.
And hurricanes are something that a lot of people deal with
in the south and on the east.
And so you understand exactly the implications of what I'm about to say.
This is gonna be the first FEMA rated hurricane shelter, and
it's gonna be made entirely.
Outta Lego blocks, and it's gonna be really cool because what I'm
doing is I'm building this thing.
I have Lego Master Builders working with me.
I've got, uh, people from the University of Maryland, uh, people who are aero
physicists, people who know wind, they know, and these guys test,
you know, uh, they test 7 47 wings and, and they have a wind tunnel.
And the wind tunnel can blow up to 200 miles per hour.
So we're gonna take this structure for the, so for the next nine
months we're gonna build this thing.
And then in September of this year, 2026, we are gonna put it in the
wind tunnel and we are going to test it under 200 mile per hour winds.
People sometimes ask me, why, why in the world would you do that?
I mean, why in the world would anyone need a Legos?
A A, a a hurricane structure made outta Legos?
And my answer is this, I wanna tell everyone that look, disaster
preparedness is in your reach.
And it doesn't have to be doom and gloom because to be
honest with you, and I think.
What ends up happening is a lot of people don't wanna get
involved in disaster planning.
Frankly, I wouldn't either.
I totally get it because it's doom and gloom.
It's boring, it's depressing, it's terrible.
So what I'm trying to do is trying to say, make it fun.
Let's make it empowering.
And kids they love Lego blocks.
That's one of the first things they did.
As a matter of fact, I have a video going, coming out in a couple weeks
where we, I took school supplies, just school supplies, things you'd find
in any elementary school classroom.
I built a wildfire structure entirely out of it in this seven year old's
backyard in his family's house.
And we literally built it back there and we tried to light it on fire and
lo and behold, it stayed up and, and we prevented smoke from entering it.
It was amazing.
But the whole point of doing these is to show people that it could be fun.
So what I would tell those folks is I would say, here's what you have to do.
It's a two-prong strategy.
First, you have to tell people that.
They are responsible for their own disaster preparedness.
Mm-hmm.
There's too many families that say, that's okay.
Mom and dad will handle it.
As soon as you say Mom and dad will handle it, why would the kids do it?
If it's boring and awful and doom and gloom, but instead of the parents
say, well, you're responsible for it.
Now the kids think, okay, so now what do I need to do?
And so they look to something that's really fun and empowering and they,
that they can say, I can do it.
Because I think if they think that they can do it and that it's gonna
be fun and interesting for them, and something that's going to train
their mind a little bit, then you will get far better participation.
Very cool.
So I have a lot of questions about this Lego, uh, hurricane shelter.
Um, how many bricks are, are we talking here?
Like there's gotta be like thousands and thousands right?
8,000.
Wow.
Okay.
Uh, you tell me a little bit about like what the structure,
what it would look like?
Or is this, I know this is a, you know, project you're working on,
uh, or is secret or can you tell me like, what, what, what does
Patrick: We do know the structure.
The structure is designed, so we do the design.
I'm working with a couple of partners because I'm gonna be building it at
Lego conferences, so we're going and collecting bricks because hey, one
of the biggest problems is how in the world are you gonna get 8,000?
Uh, bricks and plates.
And so to get that many brick, bricks and plates requires a lot of participation.
So I'm partnering with a couple of big firms.
Uh, we're gonna be announcing it in just a few weeks 'cause we're
just finalizing the website page.
It'll go on my website, disaster patrick.com.
There will actually be a page that is specifically for that challenge.
And what we're gonna do is, is, uh, slowly build this up and people
will be able to see it being built.
And every week I'm doing a little vlog.
Uh, to show people, um, the progress.
How are we doing?
Because I'll tell you something, it's frustrating, tremendously frustrating.
It's fun and it's interesting, but it's, but it's something that
you have to do a lot of thought.
There's a lot of moving pieces, so to speak.
There's a lot of people you, you know, you have to integrate.
So, so I want people to see that journey and say, Hey, if
I can do this, you can do that.
Andy: Yeah, man, I like it.
Uh, you know, best of luck with it.
I think that's gonna be fantastic.
I will definitely, definitely check that out.
Um, so
Legos aside, what does a realistic disaster plan look
like for the average family.
Patrick: A realistic disaster plan.
Don't have one.
Don't have one at all.
Here's what I tell people there.
I want you to think about, I want you to think about the
number of families you know.
Who actually write out a disaster plan.
You know what the answer is zero.
Or maybe there's one or two or there maybe that one family that,
that they are just committed.
They write the plan down.
All the other families, they never do it, period.
So the system I proposed to people, as I say, look, I wanna change the way
you think about disaster preparedness, instead of it being focused.
Around a document, a dusty old binder or a piece of paper that you and I
both know, you're never gonna update, you're never gonna look at, your
kids are never gonna care about it.
And I want you to focus it around a backpack.
A And I'm not talking about the backpack you buy at Walmart or Home Depot or
whatever, that you know how you, you, you and I have seen these a million times.
You buy the backpack, it's a big red backpack and it's got a zip tie on it
and you open it and it's got a bunch of generic junk that no one's gonna ever use.
And it happens all the time.
Matter of fact, I was at an RV park, uh, I did, I do a lot of, uh, disaster
preparedness, uh, for our RV parks and campgrounds have done thousands of them.
And one of the things that happened was, um, I was delivering a presentation
and there was a family, a, a a, a couple, I'm sorry, who were traveling
around the country in their rv.
And they asked me, Hey, would you look at our disaster backpack?
I said, sure.
And they said, 'cause we feel totally disaster repaired.
We're totally ready, Patrick.
We've got this down.
So I said, okay.
So we opened it up and we pulled out all the obligatory stuff, the flashlight,
that wasn't that great, yada, yada.
And then there was a piece of food, right?
And it's a hockey puck.
That's what I call it.
It's hockey puck food.
It's like right?
It's hard as a rock.
It'll, it'll, it'll break.
Diamonds mean this thing is hard as a rock.
And so anyway, so as we were going through everything, I suddenly pulled
out my, my, uh, pocket and I opened it and they said, well, wait a minute.
Whatcha doing?
And I said, I'm making you lunch.
And they said, why are you making us lunch?
Why'd you cut that open?
I said, because you have to eat the food now.
You have to test it now, you have to eat it now because this is food you're
gonna be relying on in a potentially life-threatening situation where
things are chaotic and you have to have food that you can actually eat.
And you know what, we ended up discovering that food, they couldn't
actually eat because of food allergies.
Oh
wow.
so these are the, so what I say to people is I say, say, look,
here's what we're gonna do.
You're gonna start with an empty backpack.
And we're gonna build it.
And I use a method, we don't have time to talk too much about it today, but
it's called the five Pocket Method.
I've used it with my high net worth clients, where they're
busy, they're jet setting types.
I've used it with all kinds of families and businesses, and basically, instead of
writing a plan down, I have engineered it.
The sys, the system I've developed is where you can put everything
you need in the backpack, and everything in the backpack will
tell you exactly where to go.
The backpack will say where you need to go and what you need to have in
order to get there, and how to be successful once you get get there.
So that's the system I use because then I can inspect a backpack and I
can pull it open and say, ah, perfect.
Great.
I know exactly everything.
I know where you're going.
There are the car keys, there are the house keys, there's this, there's that.
That tells me more than having to write it all down.
Right.
So by doing that it, it gives people also kind of a tactile feel,
Mm-hmm.
learn by doing.
I used to do this when I used to train EMTs.
I say, listen, don't worry about the book.
Don't read the book.
We're gonna do it by hand.
We're gonna put the mannequin down and I'm gonna show you how to do a patient
assessment.
And we did it, and they learned far better that way.
So when I work with families, that's what I do as well.
I say, listen, we're gonna create a backpack for you that will have
everything that you need in it.
And plus, people respond much, much better to objects than, than
they do to some old disaster plan.
Andy: Patrick, in the responses that you've given me so far, you're talking
about bringing the kids in from the beginning, not like parents are
sheltering, the kids saying, oh sweetie, you don't have to worry about this.
You're saying make everybody involved in the preparedness process.
Patrick: Absolutely.
And the philosophy I tell people all the time is, if I do
nothing, no one else will either.
No one else will.
And that's the philosophy I want you to take.
Whether you're doing any kind of preparedness response or
recovery activity with a disaster.
If I do nothing, no one else will either because, because if the parents are doing
it, it's if I do nothing, that's okay.
Mom and dad will do it.
If I do nothing, that's okay.
FEMA will do it.
If I do nothing, that's okay.
The fire department will handle all of it.
I say to them, absolutely not.
You need to assume if I do nothing, no one else will either.
And if you do that, then what happens is you now, you see how
that changes your mentality.
It puts you in a place where everyone can be involved and isn't simply, you
know, telling kids that philosophy.
It's saying, okay.
You have to handle your own disaster preparedness.
And oh, by the way, here are the tools available.
That's why I did the video with the 7-year-old because his parents
weren't there building it with us.
I mean, they were there watching us just to make sure everything
ran fine, but they didn't touch it.
They didn't work with it.
We did it all on our own because I wanted to show people that if you
empower someone, even a 7-year-old, they can build a wildfire shelter entirely.
Experience, but you are success.
Andy: That's great, man.
Yeah, I like that philosophy.
I, I like the way, the way you're thinking about, and you know, when
thinking about families, how does your preparedness plan shift when you need
to factor in, maybe elderly relatives, people with mobility issues and pets.
What sort of things do people need to know to make a plan around their entire
family, not just an able-bodied person.
Patrick: I tell 'em, don't do the same thing that you would do for
yourself that you would do for them.
So one of the things I advocate for is I say, you need to create
a disaster backpack for grandma.
You need to create a disaster backpack for your dog.
You need to create a disaster backpack for your baby.
You need to create a disaster backpack for your extreme valuables.
As a matter of fact, actually have done this before.
I was working with a high net worth family.
You're gonna think you're gonna think this is crazy, and maybe it is.
They owned a really expensive Xbox.
It was, it was custom made.
It had, it was made out of gold.
It had other stripes on it, other valuable me metals on it.
It was like this, like a special thing that they received.
And when I was doing their disaster plan, they said, would you create
a disaster plan for that Xbox?
And I said, just an Xbox.
They said, this is a $50,000 Xbox.
I said, that's an expensive Xbox.
And so I said, so we literally created, we literally created.
A backpack for the Xbox because that is because what they told me,
we're not leaving without that.
And I said, okay, that's fine.
Whe, whether you, and I think that that's crazy or not, is beside the point.
But the point I'm making is that if you see something valuable enough, you need
to have a way to transport it on its own.
So what I tell families is, is stop creating a backpack for the family.
Stop that.
Create a backpack for yourself, and then.
Create a backpack for everyone else.
A matter of fact, in a few weeks, I have a video coming out.
I, I worked, uh, with this be, this, this the sweetest golden retriever
I've ever worked with in my life.
And I created a disaster backpack specifically for that dog because I said.
To the family.
You don't you, when you create a disaster backpack, that's your backpack, yours,
the backpack you create for grandma, or for your dog, or for your baby or
whatever, that's their backpack alone.
Again, it goes back to this original concept of if I do
nothing, no one else will either.
So I have to create the backpack for them because they can't do it on their own.
And so by doing that, I now empower them.
I now empower them because I'm giving them what they need.
The key here is if you are in a position where you are taking care of someone
or you're taking care of an animal or another person, you wanna make sure
that everything you are including in that backpack is specifically for them
and not intermingled with your own.
Yeah, and that makes a whole lot of sense.
And that makes sure that, you know, everybody else, they pick up their bag and
they, they take it out the door with them.
It's theirs, they're responsible for it.
Um, when comes to preparedness, what are some of the things that
parents and families are overlooking?
What are those items that we're forgetting that we really are going
to need when something goes wrong?
Psychologically, um, I have, well, I was mentioning before I have the
five pocket method, and one of the things, one of the five pockets is
psychological, and people forget that all the time because we have, you know.
We have our flashlights and our pocket knife and the obligatory dry food and the
water packets, and we've got, you know, the first aid kit, which, which always
has like a bee sting kit or a snake bike kit, even though no one knows how to
use that stuff except EMTs and stuff.
But we have it in there anyway because it makes us feel better, but we forget.
In a disaster.
We wanna stay focused and staying focused means we need to add
items to our backpacks that make us feel as though we can refocus.
So I joke around all the time.
You and I were just talking about Xboxes.
As a matter of fact, I say this for real.
I, I dress high school audiences a lot.
I say to them, you know, what is one of the biggest things
you need to make sure that you include in your disaster backpack?
And everyone's on the edge of their seat.
What?
And I always go, you're a Nintendo Switch.
And, and, and, and I, and they think, think about it.
And I say, I say, I say, I say, say, look, if, if you're evacuating to
somewhere you've never been, or you're in a situation where something bad happens
to your house, it doesn't matter whether you're five 15 or 95, no matter what.
You wanna have something that's gonna comfort you, that's gonna
relax you, it's gonna take you away.
From what's going on around you.
So the other thing that I'd say to folks is, I say it doesn't
just have to be a game system.
It can be if they're, if they're a teenager, but if they're a kid, as
a matter of fact, they actually have these, these are small Lego sets and
they're, they're about this large, they have about 50 to 70 pieces or so.
That will keep a child busy for a while and they can build a small object.
It's really fun.
It gives them something tactile to do, takes them away from what's going on
and gives them a challenge for adults.
Weirdly enough, this is gonna sound really strange, but I actually
do this with adults all the time.
It works for kid kids too.
Incense sticks or something that has a smell that reminds you of home because
smell is the closest s sense that we have.
To memory.
I don't want you to think I'm in a disaster shelter in some
random, you know, school gymnasium.
I want you to think when you close your eyes, you're about to go to bed.
All you do is you smell something that reminds you of home.
So as I said to people, lotions, sometimes just whatever, something
that will psychologically refocus you.
To a state of relaxation, and then when you wake up in the morning, something
that will get you back into it.
So, so something along those lines psychologically, because it makes a
big difference in how people react, the decisions that people make and how they're
gonna behave because the disaster could be one day, one week, or even a year.
Andy: Right.
Yeah, I, I completely agree with that.
And you, you illustrated your point really well.
Like in the, in the time where you get to sit and rest, at some point you're
gonna want something that's going to bring that comfort to you, and it's
gonna help your brain just to calm down.
Your unconscious brain is gonna take over and kind of work on some stuff.
And when you're done with whatever it is, the nten, the Nintendo
Switch, or your favorite book, you're gonna feel a whole lot better.
I, that's fantastic, man.
Patrick: Yeah, and it's worked so well, especially with, especially when
you're dealing with people like what you and I were talking about earlier
with grandma, with a baby, with a dog, whatever, and, and someone who is a
dependent because you wanna make sure that they have something that makes
them focus that's unique to them.
I say this to clients all that time, don't, you don't have to tell.
Anyone else what that object is, you don't have to tell anyone else.
Just put it in your disaster backpack.
Yours.
Yours, not the family's.
There's no family.
Backpack.
Your backpack.
And that makes it exclusively something that helps you focus,
so you're absolutely right.
I like that.
Andy: Um, What is something in all of your experience that you've
had so far in life, what is.
One tool or maybe a, a concept that you have found to be really
helpful that you really didn't anticipate being such a big deal.
Patrick: The philosophy I tell people all the time is prepare for a disaster
and you'll never experience one.
And I do that because my message is this, because when I, when I, when I
was first an emergency professional, I started my career as, as, as
actually a disaster professional.
I'd actually worked in ambulances.
I'd actually worked in ambulances years prior, but Hurricane Katrina is when I
became an emergency professional, and.
I just felt like it's overwhelming and all I hear about is this is
the age of disasters and there's no way you're gonna be able to, to,
to, to, to prevent these things.
And I noticed that.
At some point, everyone's going to experience a disaster, and the
messages are always doom and gloom.
All we have to do is have these big prepper sts where we have enough, you
know, you know enough supplies to last us through the apocalypse and stuff.
And I just go, wait a minute, wait a minute.
We live in modern human management systems and this is the best we got.
This is it.
And so what I did was I said to myself, you know what is, uh, you
know how I'm gonna change the world?
I'm gonna change the world by changing the way we view disasters,
because I believe firmly that you never have to experience a disaster
in your entire life, and you don't.
No one ever has to because here's what a disaster is.
And, and I, I do this whenever I keynote.
I keynote a lot.
So I speak in front of large audiences and I would say, okay guys, so
let's imagine, alright, it's, uh, the Bay area of California, okay?
And the bay area of California gets a 10.0 earthquake, 10.0 earthquake.
And I say, how many of you believe that that's a disaster?
And I get a bunch of hand raises and I say, what if I told you.
That the year of this 10.0 earthquake was 20,000 BCE.
So 20,000 year.
So 20,000 years before Christ that long,
and there's no one who lives there.
All of a sudden everyone thinks, well, I guess it's not.
And so, 'cause the message I say to people is, is look, the disaster
only occurs when a natural event.
Disrupts our daily routine, human management systems, governments,
businesses, families, all that stuff.
So what I say to people is, is I say, look, if you properly apply what I
teach you using backpacks and using other systems and having different
philosophies and approaches, then all of a sudden if you have an earthquake,
whether it's a 1.0 or an 8.0.
You're not gonna be experiencing a disaster at all, because
what's gonna happen is you are gonna be prepared enough.
I'm gonna put you in a position where you're gonna be stronger afterwards.
That's how I want you to define a disaster, and that's what I've
done, is I believe we have the definition wrong of a disaster.
This is how I define a disaster.
A disaster occurs when you are weaker.
After that event, whether it's a, whether it's a category five
hurricane or a category one hurricane, and I've been in both.
Okay?
If after that hurricane, whatever size it is, were you weaker afterwards
or were you stronger afterwards?
And that tells me whether you experienced a disaster.
Now the community can experience a disaster, but
that doesn't mean you have to.
That's what I say to people the time.
You don't have to, your business certainly doesn't have to, because I
tell this story about, uh, in, during the San Francisco earthquake, which
occurred in the early 20th century, there was a man from Italy, a businessman.
He ran a bank called the Bank of Italy, and his bank was reduced to rubble.
And what he did was he pulled out a safe from the bank and he took it out
in the street, and he sat out a table.
He took out his his ledger book and he had a pen, and anybody who walked
up to him and asked him for a loan, he gave it to them with just a handshake,
and he gave away all the money in that safe.
And of all the money he gave out, 98% of it was paid back later.
And in fact, he was able to build it.
He actually renamed his bank.
His bank had been destroyed.
It was called the Bank of Italy.
He changed the bank name to Bank of America.
And that's one of the ways he was able to take the, the disaster.
He was able to take it and say, listen, I'm gonna empower you.
And the greatest stories I hear about in every disaster are people who say,
I'm gonna take this experience and I'm gonna find a way to make myself better,
my business better, my community better.
I'm gonna make a stronger overall.
That, and that is true resilience right there.
That is what will mean if you prepare for a disaster.
You will never, ever, ever experience one.
But it's a, but it's a sense that we have to put ourselves in the position
to realize that if we can do that, that is the biggest shift and that
is the largest thing that I have learned in my time in this profession.
That's a phenomenal, uh, point of view, man.
Um, I, I had never thought about it that way before, but yeah, I mean,
I could tell you I've been through, you know, big hurricanes and things
like that and usually, you know, I've come out, you know, on top and in a
better position, me and my family.
But, you know, now that I, I, I look at your de definition of a disaster.
Like, yeah, my community had a disaster, but my family didn't.
You know, that's, that's a big mindset shift.
Well, and one of the things I say to people all the time is I, I say, say,
look, you know, I understand that, that, you know, we've gone through
something large here, but afterward, look at what you're doing and saying
it's not what's been destroyed.
It's what's been suddenly revealed to you?
What has been revealed to you during the pandemic?
I say this to folks constantly.
When I keynote, I say to them, how many of you remember COVID?
Every hand goes up and I say, how many of you were home?
How many of you stayed home?
Just were home for at least for some period of time.
You didn't know if you were gonna be working.
You didn't know if you still had a job afterwards, and your
job said, don't do anything.
Just stay at home.
And a lot of hands go up about 80 to 90%.
And I always say, you know how 10, 15 years ago you always said, you know,
I've really been wanting to do blank.
I've really been wanting to think about blank, like changing my job or doing
something new or moving somewhere.
And you know how you never had the time to think about that?
Well, guess what?
That was the time.
That was the time you had, yes.
There was something destroy your normal way of working was destroyed.
Got it.
But what was revealed to you, what was revealed to you is that now you have a
few days where you can sit and think, what can I do to make myself better?
I actually had this happen a number of times where we, I had people who
were, uh, young millennials, so people who were born after, say, 1995 or so.
A lot of those folks, they sparked a great resignation because a lot of them said,
you know what, I'm in a job I don't like.
I'm in a profession I don't like, I don't, I'm in a place I don't like.
I wanna change the way I live my my life.
And they took COVID and they said, I'm gonna turn COV into a success for me.
I'm gonna take this opportunity that's really once in a lifetime and
I'm going to change what I'm doing because I get a chance to, because
the world is, is in a chaotic place and there's real opportunity there.
So that's why.
When I talk to people about disasters, I, I say, I want you to think about it on
how is this going to make you stronger?
Don't think about your home being destroyed.
That's sad.
Absolutely.
Do need to grieve about that?
Absolutely.
No doubt.
We need to, I, I would give you a shoulder to cry on, but after we're done.
Then we're going to say, how can I make myself better and stronger?
Do I still wanna live here?
Yes.
Okay, fine.
Are we gonna rebuild the house?
Great.
Or what things do we need to change or whatever?
Or maybe we decide we don't wanna change anything.
We just say, you know what?
I live here, I'm gonna deal with hurricanes every 10 years that are gonna
be cat fives, and I just accept that.
And so whatever it is, I just tell people, we need to get your mindset
back because you're not a victim.
I'm not gonna let you.
A, I want you to become a stronger person afterwards, and I'm gonna say,
Hey, the disaster, it didn't make you a, it gave you an opportunity you
never knew existed in the first place.
And then that's how I change people's mentality about these things.
Andy: Yeah, man, resilience is so important, uh, is a very key message
for what you're telling me here, and I, and I greatly appreciate that.
There is one thing that I want to, um, ask you about and, and this
one seems to be hard for people.
Um.
When dealing with something like a wildfire or a hurricane, there's always
people are going to say, Hey, there's gonna be like an evacuation suggestion,
or there's gonna be an order for a family.
When do they need to evacuate?
When do they need to know that they need to try to ride it out?
What's your thoughts there?
I
Patrick: say to them, go back to your backpack.
Open up your backpack and say, can I, can I stay here?
Or do I need to evacuate now?
Because if somebody says to me, well, I live in this big house, okay.
And it's like a castle almost.
And I say, oh wow, great.
And they go, we have a cat three.
And I said, okay, fine.
I'm not gonna leave because I don't need to leave.
Because I'm fine, because my house is great.
And so I say to them, let's look at your backpack.
Do you have the supplies to shelter in place?
Can you do that?
Because that will tell me everything.
So I'll look in your pantry.
I'll look in your backpack.
I'll look at everything.
Now for people who say, I live in a place that's near to the coast and
I have to evacuate no matter what.
I will open up their backpack and I will say, where are you evacuating to?
And I'll pull out a map and the map will say it'll actually be circled.
It's not a written plan, it's just a map.
And they've circled two places where they're gonna evacuate to.
And I say, okay, great.
If that's what you're gonna do and you need to evacuate to those places, you
need to do that now because you know what?
There's gonna be a lot of traffic and you're not gonna make it otherwise.
So it all depends on looking at what your backpack has in it and
saying, do I need to do this now?
Is it better to do this now?
Because frankly, don't wait for law enforcement to tell you to leave.
If you live in a place that is too dangerous and there's one road in
and out and your disaster backpack says, I have to travel, you know,
30, 40, 50 miles and you live in Los Angeles, you need to leave now.
You don't need to wait for, for, for, for someone in a uniform
and a badge to tell you to leave.
In fact, one of the things I say to folks, I say, listen, if you plan
on sheltering in place, love it.
Great.
Stay in place.
Awesome.
Here's the thing, make sure that what you have in your backpack
empowers you to stay in place.
Does it give you the tools you need?
To be successful during and after that disaster, because if it doesn't, you're
gonna experience a, a, a disaster.
There's no doubt.
But if you prepare yourself well enough now you're not gonna have one.
Because if it's just.
A situation where you're gonna have to evacuate ahead of a hurricane.
I'll never forget this, and I was a young Cal, I'm, I'm obviously from California
originally, and I moved to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, after I got, got a job
in the gout in, in the governor's office.
And I, I loved working for them.
It was amazing.
But when I went into private service, um, I got hired to do this hurricane planning
for this large construction site Okay.
In Florida.
So I went down to Florida.
And I talked to the site supervisor and I said, okay, so, so senior management
of this construction company has said to me, if we have a hurricane, uh,
you guys need to evacuate the site.
Doesn't matter whether it's a category one, category two,
whatever, we have to evacuate.
And the two guys who were the site supervisors started laughing
and they turned to me and said, young man, where are you from?
I said, I'm from California.
And they said, you don't know anything about Florida.
I don't even stop mowing my lawn unless it's a category three or higher.
So, and he said, for us, Floridians, we understand what a cat one's about.
We understand what a CAT two is about, but once it starts getting
to a Cat three, cat four, cat five, all of a sudden we decide to leave.
And I can appreciate what he said and it, and it's a really great lesson actually,
because learning and talking to people locally will give you so much information
on how people respond to disasters.
But one of the things I tell folks is, is I say, regardless of whether you're gonna
stay on the construction site or not, in this case, they weren't allowed to.
Corporate policies that they had to leave no matter what.
They could stay at home.
They can't, the site.
What I say to people all the time, you, you know, you know
when somebody says, well, if it's a cat two, I'm gonna stay here.
I always say, what I want you to assume is, is it's gonna be a cat three.
Always assume it's one rank higher than what you are expecting, because then
you'll then you're never caught unaware.
Because we're getting hurricanes now that go from Cat two to Cat three to Cat
four in a period of just a few hours.
It's happened multiple times now.
I thought it was only gonna happen once and ended up
happening four or five times now.
So what I say to folks is I say, look at your backpack.
If you need to evacuate, you need to say, does my backpack allow me to evacuate?
Then.
You say we're expecting a cat two, uh, so I'm gonna assume it's a cat three.
So I'm gonna stop mowing my lawn and I'm gonna decide, am I gonna stay here or not?
That will depend on how much preparedness have you done.
And the backpack is the easiest way for me to assess those things because
then I can say, Hey, look, look, you have an evacuation location.
It's a hundred miles away, or two oh miles away, grads, grandma's
house in Atlanta, or whatever.
You need to leave now.
You need to leave.
Leave now.
If you can't stay here, leave now.
Don't wait for the weather person.
Just leave now and then just say it's a road trip.
Road trip, gonna go see grandma, then we're gonna come back.
They'll But if you say, I'm gonna shelter in place, I just say, does
your backpack allow you to do that?
Because I don't know what kind of house you have.
I mean, I don't know any of that stuff, but whatever house it is,
I always say to them, do you have enough based on where you live?
I actually work with people who are high net worth, who just,
they just stay in their house.
They just, why not?
They live in a huge place.
It's all defended.
Well, you know what I mean?
It's no problem.
It's hard for them to leave, and so it's only certain situations, but that's
what I tell families all the time.
Don't let the badges and don't let the uniforms tell you when to leave.
You leave based on what your backpack will allow you to do.
In other words, what your preparedness has done in preventing that disaster.
Andy: I love it, Patrick.
That is awesome.
Um, you know, as we wrap up here, you have given me a whole lot of stuff to
think about, uh, a, a big mind shift here.
Um, if you could leave families with one core preparedness principle that they can
just carry with them, what's it gonna be?
Patrick: Every single person is responsible for their
own disaster response.
Whether they're seven or 70.
Now, that doesn't mean you have to like have it all on their own, but you
have to let them know you can do it.
You can do it.
Now, if there's somebody who has dementia or someone who is just too
young, then of course you help them.
Because they can't do it on their own.
But for most families, when we're talking about your kids, I don't
want you to say, gee, my child is seven years old, therefore they can't
create their own disaster backpack.
I'm gonna prove that to you that that's totally wrong.
Um, kids have to understand that when they're on a field trip, when they
are at school, when they are on the bus, it is their disaster response.
Not mom and dads, not the teachers, not the school bus drivers.
It's on their own.
And that seems harsh, but it's not because in the end you are giving them trust.
You are saying, I believe you can do it when you do it for them.
You are saying you are not trustworthy enough to do it on your own.
And I can tell you, working with a 7-year-old and using school
supplies to build a wildfire shelter entirely on our own.
I can tell you right now, it can be done.
It can absolutely be done, but you've got to trust them and empower them.
When you do that, you will see a magical transformation in how people
behave and how people are prepared.
So, and that's why I do the videos that I do in the videos I'm gonna be
doing, because I want people to see, everybody can make this interesting.
It can be fun, it can be empowering, and it can be something where
every single person can prevent.
Themselves.
Andy: Patrick, man, I so appreciate your time today.
I am excited about what you're gonna be doing in the future.
Uh, I know people listening are as well.
Where can people find you online so they can follow along with your journey here?
Patrick: Well, my website is disaster patrick.com.
Um, and I will say this, which is I have a YouTube channel.
It's brand new.
We've got all kinds of videos going up.
So I just put up a video.
Uh, we put up our first video a while ago, uh, because we
were just testing the waters.
I evacuated 240 cats in 90 minutes.
Um, I did CPR for 28 straight hours.
I set a world record and now we're doing this Lego one.
I have a lot of other videos, and in fact, this month, this month, starting today
actually, um, we are putting up videos.
It's a 30 day challenge I'm giving to families where every single day.
I will take you from an empty backpack to a totally completely
filled backpack for yourself, for your kids, everybody, and it.
And I walk you through the steps.
And then on the weekends, Eddie, I give them like drills and things.
I say, Hey, look, on one day I want you to cook and you can't use any heat.
You have to just eat everything just cold as it is.
Can you do that?
And then on the last day, I, I say this, actually say, uh, there,
there's actually a challenge, I say where I, I have them doing everything
for a whole day in the dark.
Now, I'm not saying everyone's gonna do that, but I want to challenge
people to say, here are the steps.
So we start on day one and I take them through my five pocket method and walk
them through everything they're gonna need in that backpack and get this.
They don't have to write down a single word, not one thing on that disaster plan.
You don't have to write a disaster plan.
We're gonna construct your backpack totally from scratch, and by the 30th day,
you'll have a filled backpack entirely.
So that's how we're starting.
I got a ton of other videos going up.
I got explainer videos, I got reaction videos.
I've got all kinds of stuff going up.
All I wanna do for everyone out there is I hope you go on my YouTube channel and sub
it because we have so many great videos.
I want to empower you.
I want you to feel like you can do it because you know what?
I've been doing this for 20 years.
You can, and I'm gonna show you how.
Thank you for having me today.
I appreciate it.
Andy: Yeah.
Patrick, thank you so much.
I look forward to what you're doing in the future.
Best of luck, man.
Patrick: Thank you very much.
Andy: Well, that's all that we have for The Secure Family Podcast for today.
Thank you, friend for listening.
Thanks again to Disaster Patrick for being on the show.
For more on him, check out Disaster Patrick.com.
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