Are you ready? Ready for what?

I have an earthquake app on my iPad. That’s why I can tell you that within the past twenty-four hours there have been eight earthquakes within 1,050 kilometres (652 miles) of Vancouver, BC. From Alaska to Northern California they ranged from magnitude 2.5 to 4.5. Some quakes have happened offshore but most were on land.

Every time a quake registers somewhere on the globe, my iPad chimes an alert. Sometimes the proximity to where I am is scary but having information makes me feel a little bit more in control, not that I can do anything about it.

I use Quakes – Earthquake Notifications by TAWCS to monitor this information and watch the updates with great, if a little morbid, interest. There are a lot of other earthquake applications out there too, along with apps that will alert you to tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanoes and just plain ‘severe weather.’ I haven’t investigated those other apps as they aren’t the focus of my novel but it makes me wonder what disaster do we prepare for?

Are you disaster-ready? What external threat worries you the most?