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That firetruck and too many of dad\u2019s FDNY brothers were buried in 9\/11.<\/p>\n
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The 2004 Asian Tsunami went right under my ship.<\/p>\n
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We took the last plane out of New Orleans during Katrina.<\/p>\n
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My crew and I drove a ship through a massive rogue wave.<\/p>\n
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I\u2019ve cried my self to sleep in hurricane-force winds praying our ship would survive and have yelled at the top of my lungs at petty pirates.<\/p>\n
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I was in India when the embassy was evacuated because of nuclear tensions and in South Korea when missiles were launched.<\/p>\n
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We had close friends aboard the Deepwater Horizon.<\/p>\n
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The wealthiest man in the world (at the time) once pointed a 3-inch gun at me and threatened to shoot.<\/p>\n
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I was honored to help a friend at the NRC as he led the investigation into Fukushima.<\/p>\n
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I\u2019ve testified under oath to congress about preparedness in the wake of the worst man-made environmental disaster in world history.<\/p>\n
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I cried many, many times more while writing the book<\/a> and once again while briefly consulting on the movie<\/a>. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n And those are just the near misses I\u2019m willing to share. It does not include the grimy details I\u2019ve witnessed at sea or any of the work I\u2019ve helped some of the worlds top special forces operators plan in my role as a board member of\u00a0Six Maritime<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n So when my friend\u00a0John Ramey<\/a>\u00a0called me years ago about a site he was thinking about launching<\/a> I did all I could to help. Today the New York Times wrote a good article about John and our friends who \u201cpredicted\u201d COVID19 titled \u201cI Used to Make Fun of Silicon Valley Preppers<\/a>, Then I Became One.\u201d. The article is well written and accurate but it misses one critical fact: the smartest \u201cpreppers\u201d I know are not smug for two simple reasons. They are not smug because- one \u2013 they do not want to be right (they, in fact, deeply want to be wrong) and \u2013 two \u2013 they did not prepare for COVID19 at all. They didn\u2019t know what would happen next. Nobody did.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n They prepared for the unexpected hoping to be proven wrong.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And the two things friends like John hoarded in great quantities weren\u2019t toilet paper and masks (although we both purchased plenty of those)\u2026 it was knowledge and awareness.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n