After reading all of your thoughtful advice, I realize he’s mostly ingesting details about the *aftermath*/destruction of these events, either through books or the newspaper we have delivered daily. Today when I left him at his preschool for summer camp, he was curled up on the couch reading “Hurricane & Tornado,” which his teacher apparently just checked out from the library. He loves looking at the USGS site, but focuses more on the locations of active volcanoes, etc.
I can counter that with talks about readiness in our area and in our own home, find some good sites about earthquake engineering methods and current science around prediction, warning systems, etc.
Thinking about his questions from two nights ago, they were all about preparedness... "What if you're in a car when a tornado touches down?" "How do they know when a tornado is going to form?" (Frankly, I didn't remember what you're supposed to do if you're in a car, so it was time for a safety refresher.
We live across the street from the ocean, but we do know our escape route, thanks to prominent signage. Our city also does an emergency broadcast test once a week, so these are good starting points to talk about how we as a society are figuring this out. We’ve come a long way from Pompeii!
I think the “we got this, kid" approach might work with him, coupled with some evidence of that. That said, there are things he has to know to do in certain situations, and while the school has done drills with the kids, we’ve never discussed it at home (blush).
Thank you again!
