Barron's - 9 Meals Away From Disaster
“If you prepare for an extended electrical outage, or ‘grid down’ situation, you’re basically prepared for virtually any disaster,” says Joel Smernoff, CEO of Black Umbrella, a New York firm specializing in emergency preparedness.
CheddarTV - Joel Smernoff talking about Hurricanes Harvey and Irma
Financial Advisor Magazine - Bunker Time for the Rich
“I think risk mitigation is very important to them,” he says. “That’s why many have family offices and focus on capital preservation. So in following the concept of being able to protect what you have, I think they also over-index in preparedness. These are people that are used to having insurance for everything. One way to look at emergency preparedness is as physical insurance.”
Curbed - Bunkered Down: Shelters, Safe Rooms, and Designing for an Age of Anxiety
Town & Country - The Latest High-End Real Estate Amenity? The Luxury Safe Room
In 2009, Catherine Hooper started the firm Black Umbrella, which works with high-net-worth families to come up with individualized disaster survival plans and create prestocked kits of essentials. "Our clients know what it takes to gain, and they know how easy it is to lose," says Joel Smernoff, the company's current CEO. "They buy a lot of insurance. We're just a different kind of insurance."
The Huffington Post - Disaster Prep: Are You Ready?
Fortune - Prepping for the Next Storm: An Entrepreneur's Advice