The Man With The Plan

Emergency preparedness can take on many forms, depending on your needs but there are certain things everyone should be prepared for. No this isn't an apocalyptic scenario, this is real life emergencies that affect thousands of people annually. Army veteran, Nestor Molina comes on the podcast to discuss how he helps people and families prepare for the little disasters that you happen to you or me any day. From power outages, medical issues, to emergency rations and more we discuss how to keep yourself and your loved ones prepared.

Battle Buddy Podcast Links:

www.jicemergencyprep.com

Transcript from Episode 33 with Nestor Molina:

Keith McKeever 0:03

Welcome to the battle buddy podcast with Keith McKeever. Alright everybody, welcome back to another episode of the battle buddy podcast. If you have ever had some sort of some sort of an emergency family, medical, gas, you name it, right? There's all kinds of emergencies that can happen, you probably realize you were either prepared for some things or completely unprepared for others. So today, I got an expert for you to talk about being prepared. He is the owner of just in case emergency management, emergency prep. His name is Mr. Molina. So welcome to the show. Nestor. Good to have you on.

Nestor Molina 0:39

Thank you for having me.

Keith McKeever 0:40

Yeah, no problem. So go ahead and introduce yourself or tell your story. You know, your military journey, what got you into military what you do? And what got you to, to sit in this chair today?

Nestor Molina 0:52

Well, said my name is Marina. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. I, I joined the Army. I said, I signed 120 times. I had no idea what I was getting into. I don't have any family in the military. And I recruited mentioned in the background that they had some range of contracts. And I was like, that sounds good enough. So I joined blind. I didn't even speak English when I joined the Army. I understood very basics in Puerto Rico, they teach you English, but it's kind of like, you know, mainland United States Spanish, it's just a little bit just enough to, you know, right. So I took a language test. And I ended up in Texas, I learned English and Lackland Air Force Base. That was like my introduction to the military. It was the Air Force. So you can imagine the shock when I went to an army base. I'm like, oh, no,

Keith McKeever 1:43

I was just thinking that I was like, I would have to ask that here to second what you went there. Yeah. Soccer.

Nestor Molina 1:49

So from there, I mean, I came in with a ranger contract. 11x Ray, and I didn't know any better I just went straight through it. I went through basic training airborne. Back then it was the Ranger indoctrination program now is the Ranger Assessment and Selection program. Rip to go to a ranger regimen. I was lucky enough to be selected made it through. Man. I started my military career in the second of the 75th Ranger Regiment. From there went to Ranger School Stryker Brigade. So I was a ranger instructor. I served in Peru and the American Embassy teaching anti Narco units, some small unit tactics. We had a small team of five. No officers, just us making things happen. Hey, you

Keith McKeever 2:37

can't complain about that. Right. Oh,

Nestor Molina 2:39

I will never complain about that team.

Keith McKeever 2:41

Sir. And all the officers that might listen. Yeah, hey, not too bad. You know, you have

Nestor Molina 2:46

nothing against you. We just do things a little bit. Some I say faster.

Keith McKeever 2:50

Yeah. Different. With less. Yeah.

Nestor Molina 2:53

Kind of like a let's get the job done and go on. So but no, that was a great experience. And then from there, I went to Hawaii and Schofield Barracks. And from there, I was medically retired. Because I broke my neck. A couple years before Hawaii. There was there was time. There was time. I know that now. It was it was time back then. It was rough. Just kind of felt like I didn't finish my time. I did 17 years, nine months and six days, but nobody's counting. Yeah, nobody's

Keith McKeever 3:23

gonna handbag.

Nestor Molina 3:24

I mean, it's right there on my DD 214. So I'm like, Okay, I guess that's what I did.

Keith McKeever 3:28

You know what, I've been specific about that before. People like, Well, how long you serve? Five years, seven months, 20 days? And they're like, Wow, that's oddly specific. And I'm like, Yeah, but, you know, it's right there. My DD 214. It's only reads I knew it. years. I didn't know that until like a lot like last year. And I was looking at it. And then finally, like the number popped in my head, you know? And now that's what I tell people.

Nestor Molina 3:52

Yeah, when you're medically retire, you go through a whole process of trying to understand that this is what has to happen. Because, you know, when I broke my neck, I mean, I didn't break the grounded. It was a rough landing on an airborne jump. It wasn't for another five years. I served another five years. Before we're like, yes, it's time. And then that's kind of in like transition time. That's when I went to Puerto Rico for hurricane Maria or for hurricane Maria recovery and disaster relief. That is by far the catalyst. That's that's when I realized this is what I'm doing when it comes to emergency and disaster management. Because what I saw there was a lot it was rough to see that my family was going through it and that we're we were somewhat ill prepared. But mainly I learned how reactive we are, then the government is reactive by nature. You know, we kind of have we need a disaster for for FEMA to react to it. Right? I am a lot more proactive. So, one day I was thinking about it. And I was like, You know what, I'll do it myself. I started my own company, hoping to teach people how to be a better prepare for a natural or manmade disaster, you know?

Keith McKeever 5:14

Yeah, there's a there's a lot to unpack here, because but I'll start with Puerto Rico and hurricanes and not being prepared, right? Because you're right, the government is reactive, right. But it's interesting to think. And it's been pretty well publicized, you know, some of the failures, successes and failures. But for an island, that gets hit pretty frequently by tropical storms and hurricanes. It's It's kind of crazy to think that you're unprepared in some ways. Well, but for so many ways that they're prepared because they know what's going to happen, you know, certain construction techniques and other things, and some things are set in place. But it's kind of crazy to think about the fact that other things you're just completely forgotten or ignored, that you're going to

Nestor Molina 5:58

part of the issue was just the way that a was hit. I mean, anywhere and then mainland United States, if a category five hurricane hits it, they are going to be some lessons learned. Oh, absolutely. Plus, we had hurricane Irma came through the island about two weeks prior and just pretty much devastated the island, it was a category three when he hit. And then you have hurricane Maria come right after. So we're not even in recovery phase yet, we're still going through the process. And we gave it we get hit with a devastating tornado. I mean, if you think of Hurricane Katrina, in 2000, what five, five or six, he hasn't like that Hurricane Katrina, completely changed disaster management for the United States of America. Now, you put that in a small island, that is only 100. By 35, the entire hurricane is almost bigger than the island, everybody was hit. And we have communications there with my mom for about three weeks. And there's there's a lot of things that I've learned that, in my opinion, I just, I want people to be better prepared. For me hurricanes are, are my jam. That's what what got me into this. For other people can be fires or winter freeze or things like that. But at the end of the day, we'll just need to be better prepared just in case of an emergency.

Keith McKeever 7:21

Absolutely. And hurricanes, correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm from the Midwest, hurricanes, something I've never had to deal with. But to weather Class A long time ago, just dig deep in my memory is there, there's a part of the storm that tends to be more severe, right? So so we write

Nestor Molina 7:39

the word we call it the return, right? Because if you think of a hurricane is spinning, spinning one way, and then you go through the eye of the storm. Well, what we call the return, it's not really the return, it's just the other side of the hurricane hit him, right, because we picture a tornado, it's a lot smaller a hurricane is it's pretty big in size. So if you if you think of all the trees are being battered one way, and then on the backside of the hurricane, they're bad at the other way, then think of a twig or branch. If you're bending in one side, when you burn it the other way it's going to break. That's kind of what it does, and a lot of things and and you mentioned structurally, we build houses in Puerto Rico, way different than we build in the mainland. Everything is concrete rebars, you know, cinder blocks, because we are expecting the hurricanes. But that category five was devastating. I mean, it would have it would have devastate anywhere that he touched.

Keith McKeever 8:35

And that's an unfortunate, I hate to use the term perfect storm, but to hell, back to back and not being able to recover from the first one. And that's a it's just kind of mind blowing when I see the things on, especially on hurricanes or earthquakes and other places before the Midwest. Tornadoes is about all there is the fault line of Southern Illinois, but tornadoes about it. Tornadoes and blizzards. That's, that's our problem. And it's crazy, because it affects such a small area sometimes, where you only think about your own area. It's hard to imagine an island, like you said to small, everybody knows, you know, knows each other to be hit back to back to back. Like that's just kind of crazy. But I want to back all the way up to you said you worked at the embassy. I got to know like what what kind of work environment was that? Because that sounds like just one of those assignments. It's just so rare, like hardly any, I guess unless you're a Marine, in most cases, guarding him. Most people aren't going to have any anything to do with an embassy. So I'm just kind of curious, like what that experience was like.

Nestor Molina 9:38

So the beauty is I worked for the embassy but not at the embassy, which is the best job to have. Right. So I was part of a planning team as a field training team out of Peru. We were stationed in Peru it's actually out of Fort Bragg North Carolina. And I got another deaf assignment. I was selected, you know, for special skills that I have. I spoke vanish, okay, nothing fancy. I speak Spanish Ranger qualified plus I was arranging instructor and we're teaching people so that you'll learn a lot. And how to become an instructor once you actually go through the courses and being a ranger instructor teaches you how to teach other people versus just, I guess sometimes just regurgitate some information. It's not the same thing. So yeah,

Keith McKeever 10:23

we've all had some teachers before, and we've had this

Nestor Molina 10:27

right, I mean, I remember the slapping on the table, it's like, you know, direct your attention to the and then they just pointed at something random is like we don't we don't do that anymore. Plus, I went through a fantastic course with a glen miser, he actually just retired yesterday from our instructor course. And I learned a lot. So I took all the lessons learned from being a ranger instructor here in the Mountain phase of Ranger School, down to Peru. And we worked independently, we had a mission. And we trained their special operations because they have they have a big fight with with drugs after the United States went through Mexico and Colombia and all of that all the well known, you know, countries for the drug trade. Peru took you know, the job. There's there's a lot of drugs and Sendero Luminoso Shining Path, that's their, you know, terrorist organization down there. And we were helping their special units be better. This Peru has all the microclimates in the world, you can drive to the coast, go through the desert, and to the Andes, down to the Amazon jungle. And that's just one trip. That's just a 12 hour trip from where we lived into the Amazon jungle. It will take you half a day. So you need to learn how to fly and all of it. Oh, yeah, it is.

Keith McKeever 11:50

Actually, on my short list of countries to visit Oh,

Nestor Molina 11:53

it is like it is a beautiful country. And I got to go to Machu Picchu, which of course somebody I'm already. I'm gonna go to Machu Picchu. Of course,

Keith McKeever 12:00

when you're there. We went over whatever they say. Yeah, yeah, I think that's on most people's bucket list. Although that seems like quite the hike. But it's uh, that'd be crazy to see, you know, all those different type of environments. You don't want one day because my experience is South America was an Ecuador, and it was pretty much just all jungle. You're kind of doing the same thing, kind of the anti drug mission. Maybe a couple of dozen of us American person, there was maybe only 100 people. So my dad, they closed that operation down a couple years ago. But we regarding a wax planes and refuelers Coast Guard had a couple of special planes down there. So right, it was quite the experience being in South America.

Nestor Molina 12:42

Yeah. I mean, it was good. I

Keith McKeever 12:44

did not have any special skills beyond asking where the bathroom was or for another Cervesa. So, you know, that was that was all I needed. You know, that was that. So Janine, that's what was important. You know, we always had wingman around to make sure you got home. Or you just got to know where the bathroom is, and where the bar is.

Nestor Molina 13:02

So it's just those are basics in any country that you visit? Absolutely,

Keith McKeever 13:07

absolutely. Everybody should know that. But the teaching that's got to be like really, really, really helpful in what you're doing. Because I know you're teaching classes on, like, you know, kind of basic and intermediate first aid, maybe if I'm not mistaken, on that. I think you did a class recently for some high schoolers and stuff. Yes. You know, on some, you know, hey, here's an emergency, here's, here's a leg wound or, you know, here's a broken arm and things like that take care of that's got to be really helpful for that.

Nestor Molina 13:34

It is it. You have to one of the first things that the teachers that you need to know your audience, right. I cannot teach adults the same way that I'll be teaching some, you know, teenagers, I conducted a class with the Junior ROTC at the high school. And they were about to do their mass casualty training. So I gave them some, you know, basic stuff to bleed, you know how to use a tourniquet how to use compressed gauze. We do some splinting. Because when I created my fac the individual first aid kit, I wanted, I wanted it from the from the side of a family, right? It's like, regardless of what I've done in my, in my career, and in my life, my most important accolades. I guess I'm a husband and a father. Right. So that's where I get all of my information from this where I do what, what drives me to do the things that I do. And a lot of the individual first aid kit kits you see out there, they have a lot of stuff that you're not going to use, like nobody's gonna grab a needle and just do a needle decompression without knowing what they're doing. That's like we skip like, we can get away with that, you know, so I wanted to focus on stop the bleed. Number one, right, control the hemorrhage and splinting because I have, I have put a splint on my son I grabbed a SAM splint wrapped up, took him to the hospital, he fell off the bed and we thought he broke his arm. He didn't. But I didn't know that at the time, right? At the hospital, they're like, oh, who did this? They thought that somebody else had already, you know, seen my kid, I'm like, Well, I did. Then like, Okay, I was like, everybody knows how to do this. Anything, I guess, I guess not everybody knew how to do it. So that's kind of through experiences. That's what got me thinking about how can I help other people?

Keith McKeever 15:29

Now, it's good to think about family too, because in a given day, you know, you assume you work eight hours to get eight hours of sleep, hopefully. So right to two thirds of your day is probably for most people around their family. Yes, live alone or something like that. But right, around family, friends, you know, close contacts, stuff like that. So it's good to know, to think about that, in terms of don't have enough stuff to handle issues for 234 different people.

Nestor Molina 16:00

Right. And that's where that's where I started thinking about it. And, you know, if I've made that swear, I could not find a company doing what I was trying to do, which is help families or just, quote unquote, everyday people, you know, because when it comes to emergency management, you have basic level. And let's say recross, like as a basic, you go to a CPR class, which are great, but it's just as basic as it can be. And then there are other companies, fantastic companies that are all the way up at the, you know, end of the world scenario, tactical combat casualty care, and I'm like, Well, what's in between? What, who's, who's helping a family? And I couldn't find it. And I was like, You know what? I'll do it myself. Yeah, it really did. I just went like that. It's like, I'll do it myself. And then two in the morning, through my phone, I bought the website, I'm like, you know, let me see if it's there. And once I found the website, I was like, Oh, I can buy it, I got the name. I'm like, I guess we're doing this.

Keith McKeever 17:08

So that's a really good way of looking at things. Like I just said, I'm thinking in groups of like, four, because you have a point, like, if you have all the training in the world, but all you have is a package of band aids, and somebody who's broken their arm or bloods gushing out. That's not very useful. Or if you've got all this advanced level equipment, but you have no knowledge of how to use it. I mean, that's the catch matters, that you're reporting your needs with the skills, you know, yes. You know, I think a lot of I mean, a good majority of Americans are probably in that middle ground somewhere, if you look at it, like a bell curve, you know, most people are going to be in that they need to be prepared for us to say two to two to six people, you know, for for, like you said, when we met a few weeks ago, we talked about it, you know, it's it is not prepping? This is not having your basement full of food. This is this is Do I have enough food to get through two or three weeks? Do I have enough clean water to get through a couple of weeks? Do we have enough medical supplies to you know, couple people get hurt, you know, we need to get, you know, spare battery spare chargers, things like that, right? Just enough corner of your room or something like that of stuff and get you by until the power comes back on or, you know, to get access to more nutritious better tasting food than some of what's out there.

Nestor Molina 18:31

Yeah. And that's, you know, that's, that's the point. When I was when I was thinking about the company name kept telling my wife and my son, my oldest is a senior in high school. So I was kind of running this by them. And I was like, This is not like for the end of the world. I kept telling them this is not any like, doomsday scenario, this is just in case the power goes out, or just in case there's a hurricane or something like that. I was like, why don't you just call it that? Why don't I just just just in case, emergency prep, and I was like, I'm going with it. I don't know what's happening, but I'm going with it. Because that's, that's really the goal. The goal, we consult, educate and customize, right. And as we talked before, your plan is not my plan. It is it is almost impossible. Just the fact that you live in a completely different area than I do. changes your plan. Your your possible disasters are different. And there's nobody else out there. Focusing on that aspect, right. There's a lot of kind of college genetic information. You know, everybody knows you should be prepared. Everybody knows you should have something. But not too many people teach you what it is or how to use it. Right. So equipment. Exactly. So I said that equipment without training. It's just it's cool stuff. That's it. Just stuff. So I'm a big proponent for knowing what you are going to use in case of an emergency, and knowing why you're using it, and he does not have to break the bank, like, that's, that's one of the big things. If you're going to get an emergency kit, and just put it on the basement, just in case of an emergency, it shouldn't cost you an arm and a leg, like we'd like to sit, you know, it's because you just gonna put it there. So that's where it kind of my experiences come in, you know, growing not only in the military, but as a family, man, you know, it's a big difference between one child and three kids. So just kind of expanding on that. And so I have no good experience, to guide a person through their own process to be better prepared.

Keith McKeever 20:47

Absolutely. So I got a question on that. What are the common issues, right? If you if you think about people as a whole across the United States taking in obviously, like I said, regional differences. I'm in the Midwest, it's cold outside, snow is coming soon. Hopefully not. Super soon, right. We're recording this right for Thanksgiving. So right things are coming out. You know, by the time this episode comes out, it's going to be, you know, middle of winter, you know, so thinking ahead, with spring coming up and things like that, you know, what, what should people really be looking out for, you know, or what are the common things that they should be thinking out that are seasonal or just common emergencies in general?

Nestor Molina 21:29

Well, right now, for the winter, as Sue just mentioned, you have to change your mindset, one of the things that I see a lot is, because of the traveling, you're not going to be able to have all of your equipment, right? Like for example, we are going to family to a family dinner for Thanksgiving. So if something was to happen over there, I don't have all my equipment. So you need to be able to think, what if something happens? So a car accident, is it, it's an emergency. So hopefully, you have what you need to not make it or turn it into a disaster, having your, you know, flashlights and fast things of that nature as far as natural disasters. I won't even be concerned about your winter. I'll be very concerned about having your kind of weather here in Georgia or in Florida, because we don't deal with that weather, too. Well, or Texas?

Keith McKeever 22:25

Oh, yeah. Honestly, God forbid Texas again. Boy, Texas bros last year, right?

Nestor Molina 22:29

Yeah. And they didn't know what to do. And that's nothing against them. This never happened before. So you can see on social media, you see all the like the jokes. It's like, that's just two inches of snow. But for Imagine me from Puerto Rico, I see two inches of snow. The world is ending. Okay. I don't know what's happening. But is crying eyes from the sky. I don't know what's going on. You know,

Keith McKeever 22:53

I feel you, man. I'm from the Midwest, and I see snow. And I've often said that people be like, Oh, it's snowing. I wasn't you know what that means? What not like it means God saying it's too cold to be outside.

Nestor Molina 23:06

That's why take it.

Keith McKeever 23:09

Yeah, everybody get inside get warm.

Nestor Molina 23:12

So one of the one of the things that I like wanted to do, because as I mentioned before, they tell you be prepared, but they don't tell you how. So I broke everything down into 10 categories. The main four categories of emergency management. The cornerstones of preparedness are food, water, shelter, fire, right? If you have food, water, shelter, fire, you're going to be okay. It all depends on how much you have. That will dictate how long you're going to be okay. Right. And the reason why I put food, water shelter fire, is because I'm thinking from the side of I'm at home, right? There's a lot of people out there and you can if you type in go bag, online, it's just going to be all kinds of different things, right? Well, I don't like that name. Go back. So I'm like, I've always asked, like, where are you going? Like, I don't understand what people are going. It's like you're going into the woods, but I have a house. Why would I go into the woods? Right? But that's just me. You know, like I mentioned being a family man, the world

Keith McKeever 24:10

kind of right situation there where you're just running away from foreign, whatever. Yeah, or zombie flesh eating virus. That's movies, that movie style stuff there, right?

Nestor Molina 24:22

So the way I look at it is if I'm having a good day, I want to come home. If I'm having a bad day, I also want to come home. If it's too hot outside, if it's too cold outside, I also want to come home. So people should have the necessary items to be okay, we're not going to be fine, right? Because it's an emergency after all, but we're going to be comfortable. Okay, so I like to make sure that people understand not only how to have multiple sources of heat, right going with a fire that entails not just a physical fire to warm you up, but a blank Do you know? Why is it a wool blanket is much better than a regular blanket or how to create a microclimate inside of your house. If you lose power, and your entire house is electric, you might run into an issue that your house is 30 degrees. Well, you can seal yourself off in one room with nothing more than a sheet of plastic and some tape. Have everybody in there. And he creates a much more comfortable environment. A lot of people don't know that. And I thought they did. I thought we all do. But we did it. So that's, I want to be able to help people in a manner that is understandable, right? It's not just because I was in the military that I noticed things. I want to make sure that everybody knows that they can also be prepared, right? I have my military experience. But then I also have a bachelor's degree in emergency and disaster management. So if you marry my military experience with my formal education, you put them together. And their brainchild is my company, just in case. It's all in there.

Keith McKeever 26:11

It'd be weird if it was something different.

Nestor Molina 26:13

Right? I mean, that this is what I think about, right? This is what I do. And a lot of people don't have time to think the way that I do. And they haven't lived the life that I chose. So it's great that I, that people like me, right, because I'm not the only one, obviously. But it's great that people like me exist and took a career path that that showed us a lot of interesting things in how to stay alive. But if we don't share that information, it just felt kind of selfish. To me, I can teach my kids. But that's only, you know, there'll be four or five of us. Well, with a company, you can share that information, you can share that knowledge with others. And it's knowledge that we will need. Every season, there will be a different disaster, every area of the country will go through a different disaster, California is on fire at the same time that we're having hurricanes in Florida. And we all still have to be prepared.

Keith McKeever 27:13

Absolutely. And I think it's something everybody needs to think about. And we met a few weeks ago, we kind of talked about this. Being veterans, we already kind of had that mindset of being aware of our surroundings, what's going on, when it comes to safety, when it comes to pre prepare, how you lay out your gear, all those things matter. Every little detail matters. And we're used to thinking that way. And it's easy to come back out in this veteran world. And think that everybody else thinks the way that we do, but they don't. Some civilians who don't have any kind of training and like that just go through life. And it is important. I know you've got me thinking about my own house, like what can I do? Because you were talking about like, you know, kids and keeping them calm, and you know, put the little flashlight headlight thing on, they can see and everywhere they look there, they've got light, yes, like, wow, that's a cheap, ingenious way. Because how often is the power go out a couple times a year, maybe it's off for five minutes, maybe it's offered 10. If you're in a rural area, it might be even longer. You know, I live I live in a town of 30 something 1000 people so the power is not typically off too long, they get back on pretty quick, you know, credit goes out, it's maybe an ice storm, maybe a hurricane, or maybe a tornado took out some power lines somewhere, right? They just throw up some more run the wires, boom, they're back up and a couple hours, maybe a couple of days. But there's a there's a bigger impact. If a If an area is more prepared and people can shelter in place and take care of themselves. It's less burden on the professionals that have to come in and do storm cleanup and things like that and medical emergencies. Because I don't have the training do you do but being an Air Force Security Forces like we did train for for things like that of it. So I know that there's a lot of logistical issues, right? storm comes through power lines are down, tree branches are down. It impacts the response time ambulances, firefighters, the police crews have to be very careful because of those downed power lines or gas leaks, water ruptures, like there's all these different things that have to be taken into account. If you look at a city it's like it's like polka dots all over the city for tennis shoes over here, tennis shoes over there, five down here, you know, so if you could stay home, you're reducing the burden on first responders and in all the aid workers

Nestor Molina 29:35

and you got to remember to they are going through the same things right. So I live in a town of 30 about 37,500 people, you know, in the surrounding areas, maybe about 150,000 people up in the north Georgia mountains. But if we're going through a hurricane or a tornado or fires, we are all going through the same thing. Right? So those firefighters at your local firehouse they're from the same immunity. So if you think about it, from their point of view, they're going through a disaster twice. They're going through a disaster, as firefighters as an example. And they're going through a disaster as a family. And those those, those people leave their families. And you know how this is, as a veteran. When you leave your house, you left your house that you're done, right, like that takes you know, that's, that's second place to what your mission, which we did, I mean, I deployed, I deployed over to overseas seven times. And I say I give all the credit to my wife for not only raising my children, like I take credit, every once in a blue moon, but I know for a fact that she did all of that by herself, because I was gone all the time. That's why I think the way I do because it is, it is good if I know what to do during an emergency. But what if I'm not here? That's where the family comes in. Right? So that's why when when we mentioned about the headlamp. My kids know where their headlamps are, right? And then eventually, I had to take them and like put them in my office. I'm like, okay, cuz you see them just walking around with a headline was like, this is for an emergency kids whenever we need them, if we need them, like, come on. So you get them thinking about problems before they are problems, right? If you ask my 10 year old, like, Jakey, what do we do with problems? How we find solutions, Baba, we find solutions. I'm like, Thank you, that's what we do. We don't freak out, because it's not gonna, it's not gonna help the situation anyway. But it's from a place of understanding. I know what it is to be an eight year old kid and feel helpless. During Hurricane Hugo, that was my first, my earliest memory of a natural disaster was being stuck in Puerto Rico and a House hearing, the mangoes and the fruits hit hit in the roof. And I didn't know what was happening, and there's nothing I could have done. So a little bit of preparation goes a long way. That's why I like to say that we were prepared. I'm not a prepper. Right. I don't have some bug out plan. I don't have a missile silo somewhere in the Midwest. You know, I don't have any of this. I mean, I have friends. And they may or may not have those things. Right. There are levels of preparedness. But for me, it's about my family. Some of my kids, it's about my wife. I mean, we even have a plan for the dog. Right? Because he, he depends on us. So all of that needs to be taken into account when creating your emergency plan, you have to account for what's important to you. And how can you keep your family safe?

Keith McKeever 32:52

So a couple of questions off that one. Who do you think are the most underserved? Or the most vulnerable, maybe population of Americans that could really benefit from having a plan to most? I think I know your answer, but

Nestor Molina 33:12

underserved I mean, they're underserved communities all around, which goes into a lot of

Keith McKeever 33:17

underprepared is kind of what I'm more when I met or who who's the most vulnerable to to issues?

Nestor Molina 33:23

You know, honestly, right now, I want to say all of us, because even as I started my company, a it made me have to actually do the things that I believe everybody should do is like, Okay, I need to have all of my preparation. My preparation game needs to need to go up. The reason why I mean, everyone is because the pandemic taught us, the beginning of 2020 taught us every single one of us that we're not as prepared as we thought, right? If, if, if you think back just a little over a year ago, the stores were empty, everything was off the shelves. Oh, yeah, you get toilet paper anywhere. And wait, you know, there's a there's a, I heard this, I believe it was on a podcast or sorry, on a video. Somebody has a theory that made a lot of sense to me. And I don't know if you if you would think so. So, toilet paper is big, right? A roll, you know, a packet of toilet paper is pretty big. So if you go to the to the supermarket, and you buy 20 cans of tuna, let's say tuna, and I just grabbed an entire row 20 cans of tuna. Nobody will care, because there's more. Right because it's small.

Keith McKeever 34:39

Shelf, right? You're taking one row out, nobody's gonna pay attention because there's probably everything around it and stock.

Nestor Molina 34:45

But if you grab 20 packets, packs of toilet paper rolls, that's pretty giant. It's gonna look empty. Right? So I feel actually I hope that that's the case. People just buy Got the normal amount of toilet paper. But then when the second wave of people came in, they're like, there's no toilet paper. And then we all freaked out. But it's because this is larger, right takes a lot of room. So maybe that's why it kind of people like freaked out, it's like, that's not totally, there was there is just in the back. But just we just got to break it for

Keith McKeever 35:21

you. I think fear of loss was a big motivator on things like that, too, you know, and I think that could happen in any kind of emergency water would be another one, where you've just got this irrational fear, because of maybe something you saw on on Facebook or whatever. But you got to see the rational fear. Like, if I don't get some, I'm never gonna get so. Right. I'm gonna be out of it. And how is this going to impact my life? Well, the alternatives are not having toilet paper. Yeah, gross. You know, Could you could you get by? Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Water. So I mean,

Nestor Molina 35:51

do we find it? That's one of the things my friends and I were talking about? Like, I have seven different ways that we'll be okay. Um, yeah. Why are we freaking out? Because, you know, I was talking with my friends. And like I said, we have different levels of preparedness, and my friend group. And we just kind of chuckle at that we're like, we don't, why are we freaking out about toilet paper of all things? Right? You know, and I went, I went to, I went to, to Costco. And I remember, I drove it's about 40 minutes from me. And I drove up one morning, and I was like, Oh, let me see if I forgot anything, I'll just do do a quick check. And I drove up, and it's up a hill. And the line was outside of the store around the parking lot to the back side of the store. And I'm like, I drove up, I turned around, and I came home, I'm like, I don't need anything. So for me and a lot of my veteran friends, we learned that we are a lot more prepared than we thought so far. But then a lot of people were asking us, what do I do? When do I start? Well, you do what you can and you start right now. I feel that the pandemic should have taught us to be better prepared. I fear that it might have not taught us anything. Right, because thanks to scar, like went back to normal, and it's like, it's it's really not. And I think about places like New Orleans or Puerto Rico, where we have constant natural disasters, it's like, it's not that we don't learn from it. It's more like what's going to happen anyway. So why, like overdo it. But in my mind, if you're better prepare, you're going to be okay, longer, like you said before, and that will help first responders and, and the city to actually help you rebuild your community faster.

Keith McKeever 37:50

Yeah, if things are going to happen again, because it's a really good point. I mean, this happened in 2020 90. It was at 1919. There was the flu pandemic, maybe it's, I don't know, 1919 1920. Yes, they had this huge flu pandemic. Well, now we have flu vaccines, you get your flu shot every year. So we found ways medically to get to kind of get past that. And still a lot of people die of the flu every single year. Oh, yeah. But without the COVID vaccine, and without different procedures, and people go on home, like things could have been a lot worse. And we need to keep in perspective that it's not if it's when another pandemic hits, maybe it's in our lifetimes. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's in our kids lifetimes, but something's going to happen. You know, hurricanes, tornadoes, you got war, you got famine. I mean, you have the Great Depression along with the dustbowl.

Nestor Molina 38:45

Right? And this, everything combined. So you know, what is it when it rains, it pours. I was telling my wife about this, they will write about 2020 2020 will be written down in history. There's no question. It's not there yet, because we're still going through it. But 20 3050 years from now, they will look back and go Well, back in 2020. And the lessons, we have not learned the lessons yet, because it's really difficult for you to learn while you're still living it. Right. And you mentioned the vaccine and there's all kinds of different opinions. And we're falling over on all this to Everything about it was so confusing to me. Because if you go from the actual emergency management standpoint, in my small town, we were doing everything exactly like by the book I was should be done during a pandemic, like when you go to school for what I did. There's a whole semester dedicated to pandemics and how to, you know, shut everything down and make sure that everything comes back in order. At least in my town, the biggest issue was it became a state mandate, right? I live in a city All town up in the north Georgia mountains, and we were doing what we needed to do. But then it became a state mandate for the entire state of Georgia. I'm like, well, but we're not Atlanta, we're not Cobb County, with what's happening here is very different. Like even, even though I live in a neighborhood, every one of these houses are pretty far apart. Right? We don't live in apartment buildings. So as far as how we react to a pandemic, or even social distancing is different. So that just kind of brings it to the point of everyone should be prepared individually, together. Right, I like to say that a better prepared community is a safer community. And overall, less, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to live in a safer community. It's just, we all have to learn. And you I'm sure you saw this in the military, we did a knee jerk reaction as a country. pandemic is here, shut it all down. It's like, okay. But just like we did in the military, they are second and third order effects to a decision like that. And he will take a very long time, which is very impatient. Like, if you really, were very impatient.

Keith McKeever 41:14

I want to say, I think part of the problem is, maybe you consider it a personality flaw, if you will, for our for most Americans is we don't like to be told what to do. I mean, you know, from from, from day one, as Americans just don't like to be told what to do. And when the government comes down and says, Do this, do this, do this, even if even if it is straight out of the playbook on how you deal with this. This is how you keep people safe. I mean,

Nestor Molina 41:41

it's about the delivery as well. Yeah, the delivery. I cannot tell everybody, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Keith McKeever 41:47

I've got friends, you know, I'm sure you do, too, on Facebook that are on both ends of the spectrum. And I don't, I try not to get political on my show. And I'm not especially partisan, but you got people on both ends of the spectrum. And they believe all this fake news stuff. And it's hard to know what's even true. Sometimes I sit here in the middle of like, you're both stupid. You're both, you're both ridiculous. You're both behaving irrational. Like what the government was coming out and saying, at least in my state was okay, let's shut everything down. Work at home, if you can, right. If you got to go out go out, like, things seemed pretty reasonable to me a lot of what I was hearing, this is what you should do. This is how we were going to attack it seemed pretty reasonable to me. If I got to stay at home for a couple of weeks, and it benefits, it keeps my family safe. It keeps the neighbors and other people across town safe. Well, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. You know, I can stay home for a couple of weeks, I got Netflix and I got I got Playstation and I got a computer and I could do some of my work remotely. And we did we did adapt, but then then things kind of come back to normal. And you it's just

Nestor Molina 42:51

it is what it is. It was all compounded. I mean, it was it was it was a rough year, right? Because you mentioned the pressure on the dustbowl, right. But we have a pandemic and elections. Those two should not be together no matter what. Right? Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Like, why is this happening? So I like that you said that you're in the middle because I I am as a political as I can be. I could not care less about politics. Because when I think about people, I think about disasters, and disasters. And emergencies do not care about your social status, they do not care how much money you have, they will happen. Now, if you think about the socio economic issues, some of the people that are the most affected are important neighborhoods. But that is for a reason. Because rich houses do not go in areas that could flood because they have the money to do the land surveys and make sure that their house is not going to flood. You know, you look at new places like New York City, and the big fires. Early 1900s. I can remember exactly the year is the reason why New York City, a lot of the apartments, apartment buildings are U shaped. Because every single apartment has to have an exit. He had an entrance. But some apartments didn't even have windows. And when one of the the construction site where most of the construction workers lived. They lived in the poor neighborhoods in New York City as they're building the, you know, the capital of the world. And it caught on fire, and a lot of people died. So that changed how we do things. And the pandemic will do the same thing. There's a lot of good things that are going to come out of what we have learned, for example, working from home, people have learned like well, I don't have to be at the office all day to do the same work. But then he got very political. I don't not understand why. Because the emergencies here, regardless of where you came from, right, I think like that, like I don't care how we got here, right. All I know is that we're

Keith McKeever 44:54

here fire started if you're in a fire, no matter where the hurricane started from Not a patania.

Nestor Molina 45:01

So let's put out the fire, right using the same analogy. Let's put out the fire first. And then figure out how we got here. How we can make it better. But it will not be until we stop, I guess the nonsense, that we're going to be able to sit back and look and go, we should have done this. We should have done that. Because nobody in our lives in my lifetime, lived through a pandemic, Nobody that I know, there's some pretty old people out there. But people that I nobody my lifetime knew what to do. Yeah, well, we're all we're all figuring it out together.

Keith McKeever 45:39

Yeah, the oldest people that we would have in this country were basically babies or toddlers last time there was a pandemic, you know, so obviously, they didn't know anything about it. There are no subject matter experts, for sure. Right. But,

Nestor Molina 45:52

but if you look at if you look at those people, people that grew up during the just like the when the economy crashed, you follow 7080 90 year olds, they are prepared, because they know what it is to go through a depression. There's you look at World War Two veterans, and they're like, oh, no, we know what it is to go hungry. In the United States of America, we have been very blessed and very fortunate that most, not most, a lot of people in the United States do not know what it is to be hungry. Some of us do. Right? So my level of preparedness continues to be for the family, because I refuse to have them go through what I did growing up poor, right? We weren't homeless, but we didn't have anything. And that's kind of what I want to bring up. It is not about having 10 years worth of food. And it's about having enough food to get you through three days, three weeks, three months. That's kind of the idea. Whatever you do is necessary, right? Exactly. And then just multiply that by however many you need it to be prepared as a family.

Keith McKeever 47:04

So where do you think everybody? Should? Anybody who's listening or watching whatever they do? What are like the first two or three things they should? You know, assess about their situation? Is it number of people is it what are my biggest risks?

Nestor Molina 47:20

The biggest risk is something that you should know, right in your area. Now, I will tell you the number one emergency in the United States of America, our house fires, there are over 310,000 house fires a year. And a house fire can be obviously devastating, not just for the people going through it, but the community. After that, you just you know how many people are in your house. So you look at FEMA, Red Cross, or anybody else, I'll say the same thing, you need three gallons of water, you know, per person per day. Right? Then you just multiply that. And I think we talked about this the thing, you have to think about how you're going to use that water. So you have once again, food, water, shelter, fire. You have those four, you add some first day, that's category number five, on the 10 categories of emergency preparedness. If you have enough food and water, because shelter, we already have the house right? Fire, we need a way to heat up our home. If our power went out, you either have a fireplace or you have a small propane heater that you know takes the green little propane tanks, just plug it in, he can heat up a small room like I mentioned before, seal off an area stay in one room. Food and Water, food and water are going to be the number one and two things that you're going to need in your house to be okay during an emergency. And then you just go from there. You have enough for two three days. Once you have that, that pantry, right, that secondary pantry, that it will get you through three days, then you keep escalating, right? Some people buy enough to have a large pantry. But then instead of replenishing, they just use what's in the pantry. No once you have the main pantry. And once you have your water. Now you work from the back end and you just keep replenishing. Right? It's kind of like a savings account. Right? You're not gonna save $1,000 and then use that $1,000 The very next month because that's not a savings account. Right? You just put in little by little, you little by little and next thing you know you have a pretty good you know, pretty good pantry that will keep your family comfortable for let's say three weeks.

Keith McKeever 49:41

Yeah, it's kind of a dangerous dangerous way to gamble there because Mr. Murphy and his damn law the moment you start taking that stuff off the shelf and using it guess what's gonna happen, you're gonna have you're gonna need to tap into it. And that would not be a great situation to for To sit in and have a family, you know, to look at, you know, your spouse and your kids and say, you know, we kind of use that water last week, we ate in memories or whatever we're gonna have to, we're gonna have to just eat crackers today. And that's what I'd like to do tomorrow, you know, and

Nestor Molina 50:19

that's why I like to pack the way that that we do. And I try to teach this to as many people as possible, for example, water, you can buy a 50 gallon, you know, drum and put water in it, that's fantastic. Or you can fill up your tub that most tubs in the United States are between 40 to 45 gallons worth of water, you know, if you have a good Headstart, and you kind of know have a heads up that there's an emergency, you know, a hurricane, or tornado or something like that, fill up your tub. But another thing that I like to do in my house, we recycle what we already going to use, right? Some people buy things for their emergency pantry, they buy items that they will never eat. Never. So it's like, why why would you do that? Like we I bought a bunch of fruit and a can, right? Canned Fruit. My son looked at me like, why. But in my head, that's, that's the army thinking, you know, they give you like some food here, you get some random meatloaf, and then you get some, here's some fruit. So I was like, Okay, we need some fruit. It's like, No, we don't, we didn't need that. So you want to replenish with what you're going to use. Anyway, as far as the water, what I was talking about was, instead of using just a 50 gallon drum, I like to use half gallon or two liter bottles, right? When you finish a bottle of juice, for example, you rinse it, you wash it well, or whatnot. And then you fill it up with water. In my basement, most of our water is in half gallon containers. It's not only because we already have the containers, so why would I buy new ones is because if I have to leave my home, if there's a tornado, we'll go to the basement to our safe room safe area, we have to leave the house. If you only have five gallon containers, then I'm going to carry that I'm going to end up carrying 40 pounds of water, you know, lugging around the neighborhood because you know, we don't have anything but a half gallon jug. Everybody, my my family can carry one, they can put it in their backpacks and their emergency bag and take it out. So that serves multiple purpose purposes, we have water. One of the most difficult things to recreate, let's say the water and the wild is a container. So we have a container. And with the filters that we have in every single, you know, emergency kits, you have a water filter, we can replenish that water. And we can sustain ourselves. So again, food, water, shelter, fire, and know how to get those right, you can have your water. But if you only have non potable water, how do you make a portable? Well, you can use a filter, right? And now you're safe to drink it. Because you're going any water not just for drinking, you're going to need water for hygiene as well.

Keith McKeever 53:18

Yeah, gotta keep in mind, it's one of those first couple needs. Yes, like, I mean, you're not going to last that long. Without food and without water.

Nestor Molina 53:26

Right? Even in the military. I mean, we were out there in the field. That's where wet wipes came in. Because you want to do some sort of hygiene right? Now, think about if you have kids or your spouse or anything like that, you're stuck in the basement, listen for three days because there was a tornado or some sort of disaster. After we take a shower, we feel better, you feel better keep the spirits up. Everybody's doing okay. It's like you know what, it's kind of rough right now. But we're going to be okay. The same goes for entertainment when I get the categories with the company's entertainment. And I have a puzzle that I put together with all 10 categories. And I remember a guy on line is like, I will take out entertainment, and I'll put more first date. That's too much entertainment. Well, the puzzle piece for entertainment was very large. But that's because the word entertainment is very long and I was I had to reply I was like, the size of the puzzle piece has nothing to do with the importance of the category

Keith McKeever 54:32

slides that's gonna it's gonna vary by individual anyway.

Nestor Molina 54:37

If you have small children. We tried to entertain our kids however we can now try to entertain children without electronics during an emergency. That's where the monopoly Yeah, that's where the monopoly that uno cars would come in. That's where all get draw crayons, you know, pencils, anything will come in handy to try monopoly next time the power goes out. Because well, monopoly can get a little bit a little bit, you know, wild

Keith McKeever 55:07

was not to let me be the bank because it's the only game I'll cheat at. Yeah, if the power's out, that might all of a sudden have a lot of money on his side.

Nestor Molina 55:17

Yeah, I don't recommend monopoly. Because listen, you're already going through an emergency. Now you're going through bankruptcy and monopoly it can get it's too much. That's right. Some owners some cars Learn to Learn to play some spades for me. I to this day, one of my favorite meals, which is not a meal, it's coffee, and crackers. Every single morning, I wake up, I have a cup of coffee, and I have some crackers. When there were hurricanes in Puerto Rico, you eat coffee, and crackers. And it stayed. I didn't realize that until I was you know, a grown man. But it's one of those memories that is like coffee and crackers will make everything okay. And then for entertainment, we play dominoes. We play dominoes until the sun went down. And then it's like, well, we can listen to a hand crank radio, put a couple batteries into what we need to do and go to sleep.

Keith McKeever 56:10

Yeah, makes sense. So let's want to shift gears a little bit. So for people listening and watching, once you got all that supplies taken care of you have first a food water that's sheltered fire, should be running some sort of drills, you know, and looking at, okay, if you do need to leave the house or, you know, let's run a drill and see how fast the kids can get your shoes on and get downstairs, you know, the safe space for a tornado. What are your thoughts on how often somebody should be, you know, running some drills like that?

Nestor Molina 56:44

Well, you want to do those as many times as you can. But the idea is to trick everybody into thinking, this is not a drill. What I mean by that. If you're packing for a trip, let's say for, you know, Thanksgiving weekend or Christmas, and you have everything packed up, let's see how fast we can put it in the vehicle. Well, that will help you pack and get everything ready to go. It will help you make sure that you don't forget anything. And it's just the drill. Well, it helps you because you're going to do it anyway. Right? So instead of everybody just throwing things in the car, and eventually it's like, okay, let's make it happen or the basement. You have to teach everyone what the plan is, right? So a very well designed plan is worthless if nobody knows how to execute it. So anytime that there's something, for example, when my kids put the water bottles down in the basement, they know exactly where those water bottles go. And the reason why I do that is not because I cannot do it is because I want them to know. And if I say at any moment, hey, we need water, they know where to get it. Now there are other events like like a fire ladder, I have a fire ladder on the second floor. So we haven't practiced that one. Because that is like, I mean, my little urgency to well, if you think of you know, in the military, we use a PACE plan, right? Primary alternate contingency and emergency, if there's a house fire. If I'm stuck in the second floor, and we need to use the fire ladder, I'm going to be the one doing it. But believe me, I parked my truck where I do on purpose. It is directly below my son's room and you can jump on the truck is probably like a five foot drop. It looks high, but it's not. So you can jump on top of the truck and then get down from there. And we have ran not the full drill. Okay, this way. Yeah, I'm not I'm not you know, Hey, kids jump off the roof and they see what happens. But I do talk to my kids about it. You know, I was like if something like this was to happen, you know, what would we do and you make them have to think about it. When there's when everything is safe, because during an emergency is not the time to practice. So as often as you can, you know if you have a flat tire, bring them out. Let me show you what I'm doing. Right. Because it'll be great if the head of the house knows what what you know what they're doing. But we all need to write. In my house. We had a we had a small fire last year for Christmas. We had Christmas eve dinner was going to be at my house. So we cleaned the oven. And we forgot the lamp that we use to clean to so we could see in the oven. We forgot it inside of the oven. So when when we turn on the oven to start cooking for the night, it was on fire. And I remember I was in the garage and my wife goes she comes over opens the door that opens on fire. I'm like, What do you mean they're always on fire. I have heard some crazy stuff over the radio overseas and so many deployments. But I have never heard the ovens on

Keith McKeever 59:55

fire. I was like What do you mean maybe the stovetop but the oven. The

Nestor Molina 59:59

oven is on fire, and she's like, they're always on fire. I'm like, okay, so I put a put down what I was doing, I walk up the stairs came to my kitchen and I look at I was like, that is true, the oven is on fire. So I turned around and I grabbed the fire extinguisher. From under my sink, you know, on hold the pain ready to go there a little test drive, I'm still working. Because I didn't know what kind of fire it was. I told her I told my kids to get out of the kitchen. And I said, you open the door and move out of the way and I'm going to spray. So that's what we did. Because we couldn't really see very small fire very, very small, because it was contained to the lamp that we forgot instead of the instead of the oven. But if we didn't have a fire extinguisher, this could have been bad. Or if my wife was not as calm as she was. This could have been bad, right? Because she just walked over to the garage like honey, Delve is on fire. And she told me she's like, instead of me trying to figure out how to do the fire extinguisher and do it all I just, I call you. And then the two of us just tackle the situation is like, and then we clean the rest of the night. Because, yeah, that fire extinguisher spray, it goes everywhere.

Keith McKeever 1:01:11

But it keeps you call to an emergency where she comes to you and in the right way. And vice versa. If she wasn't called see, yeah.

Nestor Molina 1:01:19

And you see some videos and his people freaking out, because they never thought about it. But this are normal emergencies. Now, that emergency that happened to us right, the ordinance on fire, it could have been a disaster. If we didn't know what to do when you just let it burn, and our entire home catches on fire, when all we needed was one fire extinguisher that cost me I don't know, $30 under the sink in the opposite side of the kitchen. Oh, let's use it. And we learned that day. Because once the emergency was taken care of I was like, I was telling my families like this is how you do it. And I realized I never taught them how to use a fire extinguisher before. And I was like, you know, what, what is the point if I know how to do it, but they don't? What if I'm not here. So that night, right after we finished cleaning, I don't actually I don't think we were done cleaning. I show my family how to use a fire extinguisher like this, where you take the pain, you do this, you do that. And that keeps everybody calm. Right, one of the things I discover is a lot of people are very concerned about emergencies. Because their level of knowledge is very low. So their level of concern is very high. Now there's nothing I can do to bring your level of concern down. All I can do is bring your level of knowledge up, and then he balances out. Right?

Keith McKeever 1:02:49

That's the that that makes perfectly clear sense. No, I mean, it really does. It's like wow.

Nestor Molina 1:02:58

That's a new, that's a new issue is you have that red dot

Keith McKeever 1:03:02

that is a good one, you know, I was gonna I was gonna make a suggestion to like, get your get your thoughts on this, just as something actionable that listeners can do, especially if they have kids, is maybe because we ran a lot of exercises when I was in the Air Force, right. And the flight chief would usually say, you know, a guard mount, like, Hey, we got to run a couple exercises, it's middle the night, you know, nothing happens. We're going to run once and we're going to run something tonight. Everybody was prepared in the back of their mind, there's something that's going to happen that I'm going to have to respond to, and I'm gonna have to respond the way I'm trained. But I know it's an exercise. So I don't need to go 100 miles an hour, but I need to go 50 and show some effort. But get the steps, right. You know, I think it's something that you can do, you know, especially as a parent, or maybe even if you're you know, older and you don't have kids in house, maybe your parents live with you or whatever. Or maybe the train your dog, but run a drill, but probably more specifically with kids maybe pick one day out of the month. Let's just say the first the first of every month, you tell your kids and you do it like clockwork every first if it's a school day you do it when they come home from school sometime. If it's a weekend say look, it's the first you know what, you know, some point in time today, we're running a drill, could be a fire drill, could be tornado drill, could be we need to get out of the house. Whatever, right? Or I'm going to do this do that come up with a list of your top five or six different things that could happen and organize some sort of drill trainer monitoring and audit and then boom, you know when they're at least expecting it when they're playing video games and they got their feet propped up on the couch and they're eating their their crackers and drinking their juice. Hey, kids, this is your exercise. Here's the fire drill when you doing go I'm

Nestor Molina 1:04:45

seeing the best thing is they respond to drills, especially children that respond to drills very well because in the school system, they do drills a lot. So when they respond on Friday Certainly too many people think that if there's an emergency, I'm just going to turn it on, I'm going to flip a switch. And I'm going to know what to do. That's incorrect. That will never happen. I know this from my military career, you do what you were trained to do. That's why we train, right? Because some people think that when you're in the military, just deploy and do things. It's like, well, yeah, that's, that's one portion. The actual deployment is a very small portion, compared to all the training that it took for us to conduct that deployment. So running a drill, if you want to run a drill every first of the month, that's a fantastic idea. And then you another thing that I would recommend, is, have them come up with the emergency, right? Like you're coming up with a plan, but have them come up with the emergency. And that will also help you see things from their world, from their point of view, right? Because we're seeing things over here. We don't see what they see. So what for us might be something simple for them might be very difficult, because if you have a six year old, five, six year old, just leaving the house, from their point of view is very different than from your point of view. Right? And then you can also reel them in because there might be like, well, aliens are landing, it's like, okay, and then you see where their head is at. It's like, well, if aliens land, we need a better plan. Let's focus on something that could happen.

Keith McKeever 1:06:36

Now. We're coming up in a case. Yeah,

Nestor Molina 1:06:39

listen, if the aliens land. That's a whole different plan is game on that? Yeah, that's that's way different. For now. We're just gonna focus on natural disasters, manmade stuff, you know, just kind of tornadoes, hurricanes, flash floods, what do we do just in case and ask them? What their biggest concern is? And I'm up surprised of what they say. Because they've run drills in schools. They do. And they remember them too. Yeah, I

Keith McKeever 1:07:11

mean, I think about my kids and their age, they're, they're not old enough to be left home alone, or right, be left with each other. So the idea of them being home even by themselves, you know, Home Alone accident, or something crazy like that, like, what do you do? Like? That's a that's a really good one, too.

Nestor Molina 1:07:28

Because for everything,

Keith McKeever 1:07:31

yeah. Think about it as a parent to like it. That is good to know. Like, it's hard to conceive, you get this this cases where people leave their kids in the car. It's hard as a parent to be like, how does that even happen? But it does. Yeah, it does happen? And I don't know why. But it does. So if it happens to people who, over here, why could why couldn't happen to you? Maybe not leaving the car, but accidentally leaving the home? Or what happens if you do leave them home because you think they're old enough, but not? Because every state is different? I think Illinois, like 14 or something like that, I can tell you, my oldest will be perfectly fine. Staying home. Okay, he's, he's scared of the oven. I mean, he's not going to go start cooking Spaghettios or putting a pizza in an oven. He can use the microwave, you know, even you know, but my youngest would probably freak out, or get in trouble or, you know, so it'd be, it is a good point to see where their mind is at and how they react. And that's a good drill to do leave them at home, like just walk outside, say, oh, boom, here's the drill. I'm going outside. What are you doing?

Nestor Molina 1:08:41

You know, I used to that just reminded me I used to when I was when I was little, I had to walk my sister in kindergarten back home. Right? I was we're four years apart. So I will be in elementary school together. And even back then, like, it just reminded me, I used to let her go. I was like, Okay, you go. I was like, uh, you know how to get home, we walk the same route every day go. And I will stop at the end of the block. And she didn't know I was there. And I'm looking and I watch her make the turns in the neighborhood. It was like a 15 minute walk. You know, but when you're in kindergarten with tiny legs, it's a long walk. And you're you're by yourself. And I remember I will cut across some neighbors, you know, cut across their yard. And I can see because you know, it's around a band. It's like, okay, I can still see her. And I'll let her go home by herself. I did not remember that until just now. Even back then. I'm right there. But they don't know that so they have to think about it. And now that I think about I've done the same thing with my kids even when they don't think that you're there. You're You're always there. Because I tell you as a as a father as of a senior in high school. It just not get any easier because this is terrifying because next year it will be the first time in my life that I'm not going to be right there. In case that, you know, just in case he needs me, I'm not going to be right there. There's nothing I can do if there's an emergency in college or something like. So you have to prepare yourself for what's to come. But that's why you asked them, you know, what are you worried about, and you see things from their point of view. And that I mean, that can only make you better as a parent, because now you understand what they see in different situations.

Keith McKeever 1:10:33

That's a good point, because you never like, everybody's gonna be different. Growing up, I grew up in the country. And we had a neighbor that had a dog and the dog bit me on the arm once and because I was afraid of dogs. As a kid, we I was my dad had got had me doing something along the house, I think was right after was built. So he actually gave me a shovel. And here's a here's your shovel the dirt back into long house, right? monumental task is never going to make a dent in it, right. But the crew wasn't there that day. So I'm out there like trying to help that out. Right. He was on the tractor down talking to the neighbor, well, all of a sudden their dog shows up. And I didn't know this dog had never met him, we just kind of built up built the house, I didn't really know. And I'm like afraid and I pulled up the shovel. And I like, swing it back and forth. Like get away from me, you know, I'm horrified. So dog just runs away, kind of growls at me runs away, I peek around the house, dogs sit in my bike, the only door into the house. And I'm like, because we they have built the basement and he built on built on top of it. So the basement was done. So my mom and my sister were inside, here's this dog, and I'm like freaking out, fight or flight takes effect. And I go running down the hill because I'm like, well, Dad's on the tractor can't get in the house. So I get about halfway down the hill, the dog kind of chased me down, grabbed me on the shoulder flipped me around, didn't bite me hard enough to leave any permanent stars or anything but probably more in my head than anything else. Right. But for the rest of my childhood. They had that dog chained up, they didn't put it down or anything, they kept the dog but he was always chained up, he got loose a couple of times, I never went anywhere without a BB gun, or later, rifle, or, or a big pocket knife in my, in my pocket anytime I was out of the house for any period of time. That was it. Of course, I had a dog too, that would would protect us eventually. But it was like that was my that was my number one fear, I could go down and play in the creek or shoot guns or try and catch animals do all kinds of crazy stuff didn't bother me never had no fear of any of that. My one fear was that dog being loose.

Nestor Molina 1:12:35

And it's from experience. You know, it's it's yeah, it's what happened to you. And that's what you thought about. And it those experiences shaped a lot of our behaviors, you know, and I feel that as adults, we have responsibilities. And you know, my children have expectations of me, you know, you our spouses have expectations, you know, the elderly expect the younger people to you know, help them and take care of them. So if we're, if we're better trained to deal with a situation, then we might react better, right? It's only through training, just like you said about your experiences we'd like you know, we're gonna run some some drills or something and you're like, Okay, it's not like for real, but I really need to, like, put some effort into this. Well, that just brings it back to the training. But then if something happened in real life, you're you have already done it. It is easier. It is it is it is somewhat normal to you, even though is an abnormal situation is an emergency, right? I mean, nobody wakes up in the morning and goes, today's a good day for an emergency. Let's do this.

Keith McKeever 1:13:49

Exactly. Nobody does that. You got to build that muscle, that muscle memory. Absolutely. Even. Even in your brain of here's how I react. Here's where things are. Here's what I got to do. Here's my steps. And if you do it slowly, like I tell my kids all the time, and I don't know where I originally heard this, I don't know if you've ever heard is too slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Yeah. You know, and it's like it. I've tried to explain it to my kids and like, don't, you don't start off by sprinting, go slow, figure it out, you know, the little steps and it just builds up and the next thing you know, your sprint sprint right through things. It's perfect analogy for all kinds of things in life. It

Nestor Molina 1:14:33

works. There's there's so many lessons learned from the military, that if you use them in the right context, they will help you and they will help anybody. Because when you said slow, smooth, smooth is fast. I can hear my team leader saying that I was a private, going through a mouth city and conducting, you know, close quarters battle, which I've never done. I would even shoot a gun until I was in the army. So This is all new to me. And now I'm doing it with multiple people. And everybody's more experienced than I am. I'm a private, you know, and repetition and repetition. And over and over, over and over. And I'm a big fan of doctrine and knowledge, and doing things, right. And if you rehearse and you plan, when it's when it's go time, it will be better. I mean, when you're a private in the Ranger Regiment, I always said I was the toughest job I ever had in the army. Out of all the things that I did in my career, the toughest job I ever had, was to be a private in the Ranger Regiment, and this private, barely spoke English. So I became a very strong private, because I had to do things a lot of times. But those repetitions really helped when when he really came time to do my job. And that's how I look at emergency management. The time to prepare is not when a disaster is here, by then it's too late. If you're not prepared for the disaster, now, you should be prepared for the next one, right? Because if you make it through a disaster, in your hometown, or whatever it might be, or a vehicle accident or anything. Next time, you will be better prepared. If you get into a car wreck. From that day forward, you will pay attention to the world differently. It's like when I bought a motorcycle, I never saw a motorcycle on the road, and I purchase one. And then you see them everywhere. Because you change the way that you see things. Same thing for emergency management. And we are planning, excuse me, we are planning all the time. Right? If you're going, if you're going to work, you know what time you have to wake up. So you can get in your car. So you can drive to your place of work. Or you can do anything, if you're going to a friend's house, you know what you're going to where you know how long it will take you to get there, you know, when the kids needs to start getting ready. That is all planning. You know, what I'm trying to teach people is that it is that easy to plan for an emergency. We are doing it all the time. We just need to take those ideas and bring them into just in case something happens. What do we do the same thing?

Keith McKeever 1:17:26

Absolutely. So to recap, everybody should change their mindset a little bit. And realize that emerged, you know, emergencies don't have to be I mean, it could be from a broken arm, or a broken bone or a cut that's not stopping bleeding all the way up to you know, full blown tornadoes and hurricanes, house fires, things like that. So plan and identify, make sure I kind of get this right here planet, identify what you know, change your mindset, plan and identify what your biggest threats are to yourself and your family. And and start preparing for at least three days worth of food, water, shelter, fire, and then expand upon that. And then drill and train for those more likely situations.

Nestor Molina 1:18:14

Correct? Yes, that's what we focus on. We focus on and just in case we focus in the most than the more likely scenarios, you know, the aliens my land. What we're probably we're probably going to lose power before the aliens land. So let's prepare for the power outage. Before we worry about other things. That's my mindset.

Keith McKeever 1:18:38

I've seen Independence Day and I've seen more as attacks. I think I'm pretty well prepared for the alien invasion.

Nestor Molina 1:18:44

I think I think we are all as prepared for an alien invasion as anybody in the movies.

Keith McKeever 1:18:49

Yeah. Our heads are not going to explode. It's not going to No, I hope no, I mean by Reagan's we know if it's like Mars Attacks, they have those glass globes, all right, they can't breathe oxygen or something like that.

Nestor Molina 1:19:03

And it is it is aliens or zombies. Hopefully, if the zombie apocalypse happens, we're talking like, what is it the Walking Dead? Versus warlord Z? Those I don't want the zombies. Those are too fast. And they're too smart. I need slow zombies

Keith McKeever 1:19:19

slow to go. Yes, absolutely. Yes. You know that zombies don't fly. So there's you take your point.

Nestor Molina 1:19:28

That's a good point. That's not really an issue.

Keith McKeever 1:19:29

Oh, yeah. Well, let's hope we never in our lifetime have to experience that. Ready. That would make COVID look like nothing. Yes, for sure. But, anyway, Nestor I appreciate you coming on here. I've got I've had at the bottom of the screen for anybody who's watching it. Got your email address, your website address going on. It's scrolling at the bottom there. Anything else that you have any other nuggets of information you want to pass along? How can people reach out to you if they want once in training.

Nestor Molina 1:20:03

So the the website is GIC emergency prep. My email is Nesta dot Molina at GIC emergency prep calm. And we're on Facebook is the same thing GIC emergency prep and on Instagram is Jay I see underscore, emergency prep, shoot me a message, you know, a text, it does not matter if anybody has questions. Again, what we do is we consult educating customize. We don't just give you here some kits that you can buy on the side of the road, no, no, we make sure that what you have is what you need. And the most important part of what we do is we educate people into why we chose a particular piece of equipment. We teach you how to use it, and we teach you how to get better and keep getting better as time progresses. Right? So consult, educate and customize.

Keith McKeever 1:21:02

Yeah, because you got to have the right tools because the snow shovel doesn't do anything for you in Puerto Rico, right? Well,

Nestor Molina 1:21:08

you know, maybe you can use it or move some sand. But yeah, you probably need different different equipment. And, again, it all depends on where you live, what kind of threats you have in your area. And like I mentioned before, this is not for the aliens or the zombies, okay, we can move away for those from those for a little bit. This is just in case the power goes out, just in case there's a hurricane, a tornado, a natural disaster, or a manmade or even a combination of the two natural and manmade disaster combined. If you are better prepared, you will be okay. And again, perhaps you can help the first responders do their job by not being a victim of the disaster.

Keith McKeever 1:21:50

Absolutely. So there you got it everybody thinking Nesta for for being here. Just want to make sure everybody kind of got some nuggets of information out of that, like, develop the plan. Listen to this a couple times if you need to. If you're not yet subscribed, or follow like we're on all kinds of different platforms, right? Do that. Connect with us listen, in. But most importantly, because this affects everybody. This is not just for veterans. But share this, share this with people right listen to it come up with an action plan. Because most of my most my listeners and viewers are veterans military community, right? Develop a plan, right? That's one thing we know how to do really good. Yes,

Nestor Molina 1:22:30

come up with that plan.

Keith McKeever 1:22:32

Exactly. Come up with the plan, share the plan, assess that plan frequently. You know, run your drills, do your thing, like don't need to keep, you know, pounding the drum here, but,

Nestor Molina 1:22:42

and get involved with your community veterans, we need to be involved in our communities, because there's a lot of information, training and knowledge that we have, that we take for granted. But our communities can be better served with us in it in the community, whether it is with your volunteer aspect of it or just talking with your neighbor, your small community, all the way up to your county may vary, maybe even the state, just be more involved with your community. There's a lot of information, there's a lot of knowledge that we can share a lot of experiences that have shaped us to react better, just in case of an emergency.

Keith McKeever 1:23:23

Absolutely. Awesome. Well hang out there for a minute. So we're going to go ahead and play this, this new slide here. But once again, I appreciate you coming on and if anybody needs to contact them and you can't find them through the website or whatever reach out to the show. We're connected, I think in multiple different platforms. So we'll get the message to Nestor. So

Transcribed by https://otter.ai