Free Course: Disaster Preparedness (University of Pittsburg)

• University of Pittsburg.
• Class start: 26 January 2015.
• Course Length: 6 weeks.

"This course will teach the student how to survive when everything we normally take for granted is gone, when the structures we depend on have failed. We will examine the Disaster Cycle, particularly the Mitigation and Recovery phases. Students will prepare an extensive personal preparedness plan covering such topics as supplies, communication, food and water, shelter, security, and comfort (yes even in survival there can and should be comfort). We also look at preparedness on the institutional and government levels.

We will look beyond these plans towards the one aspect of survival, which will enable a person to survive when all planning has failed. Disasters, by definition, overwhelm all available resources. If all available resources are gone, only one thing will keep a person alive and that is their attitude. A persons awareness and attitude, the two are closely linked, allow a person the means to remain calm, avoid panic, and draw upon resources within and outside the person to survive when their world has failed. In truth not everyone survives in extreme circumstances; people die, but, even in death, attitude, if it cannot save you, provides some degree or comfort".