Press

We’ve come a long way since Y2K when everyone was obsessed with stockpiling shelves and shelves of nonperishables, according to Joel Smernoff, CEO of Black Umbrella, which sells curated emergency kits. “If you gather the right supplies to allow you to live at home off-grid, then you’re in control of your destiny and you’re not on the streets with panicky people or in the supermarkets fighting over a can of peaches.”

Black Umbrella’s “Sanctuary Box,” for instance, includes a “comprehensive emergency solution” neatly packed in a 60-liter Yeti cargo box with enough supplies “to live comfortably off-grid without water, electricity or communication for extended periods.”

Call it tail risk or Murphy’s Law, but if history has taught us anything, something unexpected and unprecedented will come for us. In the past 100 years, we’ve seen Pearl Harbor and 9/11, a Great Depression and Recession, and lots and lots of war. Sure, we bounce back, but having a plan for the tough times makes them a lot easier to stomach.

What’s to come? New possibilities include cyberterrorism—potential attacks on our electrical grid, financial systems, or water supply. A dirty bomb could render a major city section like lower Manhattan uninhabitable for years. Then you have Mother Nature: hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and quieter disasters like drought.

What’s the psychological toll of this kind of constant worry, of expecting the worst outcome and investing in the aftermath? Catherine Hooper, a New York-based safety consultant who founded Black Umbrella, which creates personalized escape plans and preparedness packets, says that she’s seen a consistent level of interest in this subject since starting her business in 2009. After seeing residents of New Orleans suffer through the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, she kept thinking to herself, "How could they not be more prepared?" She realized she couldn’t criticize them if she hadn’t prepared for a similar situation herself. After researching and finding no existing service, lots of incomplete and often contradictory information, and lots of interest from her friends, she decided to launch Black Umbrella.

If recent media reports 
of building plans featuring what looks like a secure bunker on the property of Mark Zuckerberg are true, 
the billionaire won't be alone. As fear escalates worldwide, foreign royals, cautious executives, and Gwyneth Paltrow are among those looking for spots to ride out anything from an ISIS attack to a natural disaster.

Secure design has come
a long way since hedge fund titan Bruce Kovner outfitted his historic Manhattan townhouse with a lead-lined room, built to protect him from a dirty bomb, in 2002. These days safe rooms are more five-star retreat than cinder block fallout shelter. "They may want a facility that's nuclear-proof, but they also want it to look like a Ritz-Carlton," says Lana Corbi, who, with her husband Al, runs the security firm Strategically Armored & Fortified Environments.

Black Umbrella featured on Bravo TV's Odd Mom Out (season 2, episode 2)

Lately I've been inundated with messages about disaster preparedness. Is the universe telling me something? I sure hope not! Being prepared is one of those things I never thought to bother with because I'm optimistic that any sort of catastrophe won't happen to me. Many people are in the same school of thought as I am on this, yet most of us tend to make health insurance a priority, right? Is disaster prep that much different?

So, as television and the Internet are starting to kick open my firmly closed door on the reality that I actually am a physically vulnerable human-being, I thought I might actually take a look at what other people are doing.