By Morgan Mak, WA Emergency Management Division

Admit it.  The word Resilience sometimes causes the same reaction as nails running down a chalkboard. 

I’m often asked my opinion on the difference between Mitigation and Resilience.  Depending on how sassy of a mood I’m in my response can range from a sarcastic eye roll to a full on enthusiastic lecture describing something pretty dang near utopia.  Although Resilience might be a favorite buzzword thrown around in meetings and conferences, the concept is what we’ve all recognized as an end goal for humanity since forever.  Seriously!  Cavemen figured out how to hunt wild beasts many times their size, build fire to cook the meat harvested from their hunts, and not die from the hundreds of diseases we still worry about to this day.  That is some serious application of how not to let the risks posed by the existing natural hazards negatively impact your livelihood.