Home / Press

Press

Filter by tag:

Curbed - Bunkered Down: Shelters, Safe Rooms, and Designing for an Age of Anxiety

Curbed - Nov 2, 2016

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.

Hooper has helped hundreds plan for what to do during a disaster and what comes next, and she says even the exercise of preparing can be emotional.

"Somebody who makes multimillion-dollar decisions multiple times a day"—Hooper tends to deal with very wealthy clients—"you’d think they’d be good at this, but it’s not easy," she says.

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?

Disaster Prep: Are You Ready?

Posted: Updated: 

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.

Disaster preparation can be a sensitive topic to bring up with people. Nobody wants to feel like a Chicken Little explaining to their friends that they keep astronaut food in their backpack in case a meteor hits. And I certainly don't want to live under a cloud of "something might happen." My outlook has been that I'm not likely to use a personally prepared survival kit, so why waste the time and money. 

But I live in New York City and have friends who were directly impacted by emergencies such as terrorist attacks, crane collapses and storms. And that's a city that's not even susceptible to disasters that are more likely to happen in other parts of the world. So when I put two-and-two together -- disaster-plus-preparation - the answer is Yes! Yes! We must be prepared. It can't hurt, it will only help.

The most user-friendly disaster preparedness strategy is the Bee Prepared: Go Bags concept created by mother and activist Michelle Manning Barish. This is a logical and un-scary approach to possible catastrophe. In fact, she even includes her daughter Bee in the YouTube video, which puts me at ease knowing that if a sweet little girl can prepare for disaster with a smile and style, then so can I! The video is captioned as a "Mom's practical guide", but Barish's refined and articulate direction is appropriate for anyone who needs a smart and efficient go-bag. 

The next level up on the intensity scale is Black Umbrella's emergency safety plans and products. Created by Catherine Hooper, the company was conceived out of Hooper's own frustration with not having an emergency plan for her family. Black Umbrella taps into resources such as certified and bonded tactical specialists to provide emergency plans, preparedness gear, and more. There are different family plans available and some include practice family drills, on-call service and more. 

But nothing is as intense as National Geographic's Doomsday Preppers. Not so much a 'how to', unless you're the prop-master for the next Planet of The Apes movie, but definitely entertaining. So if you need any motivation to subscribe to Bee Prepared: Go Bags, Black Umbrella or any other disaster preparedness information, then start here!

And lastly, let's hope none of us ever really have to use our go bags or emergency family plans, but it's always better to be safe than sorry!