The first 72 Hour Rule says to wait no less than 48 hour and ideally 72 hours before believing any reports on  the Main Stream Media or the Internet about a large scale incident.

As soon as the first coverage gets out, the whacky internet rumors start. Remember that the Main Stream Media (MSM) lives by getting stories out first. He who breaks a story gets the most eyeballs and advertising money. It doesn’t matter if those eyeballs are on broadcast TV, cable TV news, blogs, websites, or even print.

Getting the story out quickly and accurately used to be the rule, but that’s gone now. When you put something out in the days of print you had to live with your mistakes pretty much forever.

This happened before I was born, but is still infamous to this day.

Ooops.

Now, if something is said or published incorrectly, the story can be “stealth edited” so that if you look at it later there is no trace of the earlier incorrect story. That happens on TV and cable news as well. If there was a clip saved to a website, it ill be deleted and replaced with the correct story. That’s fine except that there will be no notation that a previous story was incorrect.

When the MV Dali hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the middle of the night last week most people awoke and saw the story with some alarm. Initial reports were that numerous cars were at the bottom of the bay, which turned out to be false.

Shortly after the story broke, the whacky rumors started. Putin ordered the attack as revenge for the US blowing up the Nordstream Pipeline. A Muslim terror group did as revenge for US support for Israel. The US government did it to uh, do something or other. The Harbor Pilots had panicked and hit a secret button to kill power to the ship on purpose.

Self proclaimed experts decreed that the tug boats pulled away prematurely for some unknown reason.

It was a few days before the story came out that the ship had had power system problems. The ship despite being built only in 2016 had a history of shoddy maintenance and had had problems before.

Most of the crew were Indian nationals working under contract and the officers were all licensed merchant mariners.

Oh, and ships hit bridges and docks with distressing regularity.

The problem with silly rumors is that people will believe them because conspiracy theories can be tailored to account for any false information.

Remember dimwit Rosie O’Dumbell claimed that fire had never melted steel before September 11, 2001. Fat dimwit Michael Mooreon produced a movie blaming Pres. G.W. Bush for the tragedy. In his case, his lie filled money made the so called socialist millions of dollars. Yet, people believe that unmitigated BS.

Back when I was working as a paramedic I lived by the motto, “Don’t just do something, stand there.” Which meant do just do something because you could. There is a lot more potential for harm than help in just about every piece of EMS equipment we have, including our vehicles.

The point being to make sure you know what’s going on before acting. In a large event like the Key bridge crash it’s going to take a while to sort out what actually happened versus what the media tells you. That’s even if the media isn’t making shit up to get on the air.

The second 72 Hour Rule says that in a wide scale disaster you need to be prepared to survive for 48-72 hours before help gets to your area. That’s particularly if the federal government is the help for which you are waiting. It doesn’t matter who is in control in Washington, DC it’s going to take that long. The story line in the media will be different depending on which political party is in control, but the fact remains.

If the disaster is large enough it’s very likely that the local and state resources will be unable to respond. Their local resources may be overwhelmed or degraded to the point where they can barely (if at all) able to help themselves and will have no resources to spare. That includes law enforcement, fire suppression, and medical. Medical includes EMS, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and even individual practitioners. Public Safety personnel are not immune to floods, fires, blizzards, earthquakes, or tornadoes. In addition to possibly being killed or disabled, they have families, friends, and residences to worry about.

Make sure you have a sufficient supply of food, water, medications, and shelter to last up to 72 hours. Have a generator of some sort to provide power so you can heat or cool your living space in some degree of comfort. Have firearms to protect yourself and your family as the police instead of being minutes away could be hours away or just not coming.

Have first aid supplies and know how to use them in case someone gets ill or injured.

Don’t forget your pets. One of the biggest post Katrina complaints was that there were no provisions to treat, transport, or shelter people’s pets. In the years following Katrina FEMA bought (meaning you and I paid for it) all sorts of vehicles and equipment to rescue pets. This is not an internet story as I saw those vehicles in 2006 when I went to a FEMA training course.

Now, they have all sorts of information on the FEMA website, but other than dogs for Urban Search and Rescue they don’t seem to have all of the equipment that they used to. Nobody can waste money like the government.

So, there are the two 72 Hour Rules. One is not to believe what you hear right after a disaster, the other is to prepare to be self sufficient after a disaster.

For what it’s worth, I once suggested that the functions of FEMA should be contracted out to Walmart. Which might explain why I was never invited back to another FEMA event.