Hey everyone, welcome back to My Weird Prompts. We are coming to you from our usual spot here in Jerusalem, and today we are tackling a topic that is frankly as practical as it gets for those of us living in this part of the world. It is March eighteenth, twenty twenty-six, and while the world keeps turning, the technical challenges of living in a high-threat environment remain a constant reality. I am Corn, and I am here with my brother.
Herman Poppleberry, at your service. And Corn, you are right. This one is close to home. Our housemate and friend Daniel actually put together something pretty remarkable that we are diving into today. He has been working on an open source project over on GitHub that basically takes the principles of aviation safety and applies them to home emergency preparedness here in Israel. It is called the Emergency Preparedness S-O-Ps, and it is specifically designed for people living in older infrastructure.
It is a fascinating approach because when you look at how pilots handle emergencies, they do not rely on memory or vibes. They have Standard Operating Procedures, or S-O-Ps, that are designed to be executed under extreme stress. And let’s be honest, hearing a siren is the definition of a high stress environment. Daniel basically looked at the older buildings in our neighborhood, the ones that do not have the modern Mamad safe rooms, and asked, how do we engineer safety for people who have about ninety seconds to make life or death decisions? That ninety second window is a brutal technical constraint. It is not just a suggestion; it is the physical limit of the threat arrival time in many parts of the country.
It is about reducing the cognitive load. When the adrenaline is pumping, your brain does not work at one hundred percent capacity. You lose fine motor skills, your peripheral vision narrows, and you can easily freeze up. By having these aviation style checklists, you are essentially pre-deciding your actions so you do not have to think when the clock is ticking. We are going to walk through these fifteen specific protocols today because, while they were written for English speakers in Israel, the logic of systems engineering applied to personal safety is something anyone can learn from. This is not just general advice; this is a tactical manual for survival in a ninety second sprint.
And we have touched on this philosophy before. If you remember back in episode seven hundred sixty-five, we talked about radically simple engineering for emergency S-O-Ps. We also touched on the time-constrained nature of these events in episode eleven hundred eighteen, which we called The Ninety Second Sprint. But today is the deep dive into the specific tactical application of Daniel’s work. We are looking at that ninety second window as a hard deadline. Herman, let’s start with the foundation. Before the siren even goes off, there is this concept of Readiness Postures.
Right. This is where the aviation analogy really shines. A pilot does not just wait for the engine to fail; they are constantly in a state of readiness based on the phase of flight. Daniel breaks this down into Category One, which covers your daily life. S-O-P-one is Daytime Readiness. Most people think preparedness is just having a bag in the closet, but this protocol is about situational awareness. It means knowing exactly where your shoes are, having your phone charged, and keeping your keys in the same spot every single day. It is about maintaining a "launch pad" for your essential items.
It sounds simple, almost too simple, until you realize how many people spend thirty seconds of their ninety second window looking for their glasses or their flip-flops. I like how he emphasizes the exit routes. If you are in an older building, your primary exit might be a narrow stairwell that is cluttered with strollers or bicycles. Part of the daytime readiness is literally walking that path and making sure it is clear. It is an audit of your environment. You are looking for friction points. If you have to navigate a dark hallway with a stroller in the way, you have already lost the race.
And then you have S-O-P-two, which is Nighttime Readiness. This is a big one for those of us who have been woken up at two in the morning by an alert. The protocol here is about minimizing the time between being unconscious and being in motion. You have your clothes laid out in a specific order. You have a torch, or a flashlight for our American listeners, right next to the bed. You do not want to be fumbling for a light switch if the power is out. Daniel suggests a ten second goal: from eyes open to out the door in ten seconds. That requires a level of organization that most people just do not have by default.
I think the most important part of the nighttime protocol is the psychological aspect. If you know exactly where your shoes and your keys are, you do not panic as much when you wake up to that sound. It is about moving from a state of sleep to a state of action without having to process complex information. But let’s talk about when things get a bit more tense. S-O-P-three is Escalation Readiness. This is for when the news cycle suggests that things are deteriorating. This is the transition from passive readiness to active preparation.
This is the seventy-two hour rule. In a serious escalation, you have to assume that infrastructure might be stressed. We are talking about having four liters of water per person per day—that is the official Home Front Command recommendation, by the way, not just three. You need non-perishable food that you actually like to eat, and making sure your power banks are topped off. But it also includes things people forget, like having actual cash on hand. If the network goes down, your credit card is just a piece of plastic. You need small bills, too. If you are buying a bottle of water, you do not want to be handing over a two hundred shekel note.
And don't forget the documents. Daniel suggests having physical copies or at least an offline digital backup of your I-D, your insurance, and your medical records. If you have to evacuate, you cannot rely on the cloud. Now, S-O-P-four is something I think every resident in an older building needs to do today. It is the Shelter Check. This is not just knowing where the shelter is; it is a technical verification of the route.
This is critical because in older Israeli architecture, you might not have a safe room in your apartment. You might be relying on a public shelter down the street or a communal shelter in the basement. S-O-P-four dictates that you need to identify the three nearest shelters. Not just one, but three. Why? Because one might be locked, one might be full, or one might be inaccessible due to debris. You need to physically walk to them, time yourself, and if there is a digital code for the door, you need to have that code memorized or written down on your person. You also need to check if the shelter has ventilation and if the heavy blast door actually closes. A shelter with a jammed door is just a room with a heavy weight attached to it.
That timing element is key. If the Home Front Command says you have ninety seconds in Jerusalem, and it takes you one hundred seconds to get to the public shelter, you have a math problem that needs solving. You cannot run faster than physics. That is where S-O-P-eight comes in, which is the decision flowchart for choosing a protected space. This is where we need to bust some myths, Herman. People have some very dangerous ideas about what makes a room "safe."
Oh, absolutely. This is probably the most important technical detail in the entire set of S-O-Ps. People have these dangerous misconceptions about where to hide. They think the bathroom is safe because it is small and has no windows. Wrong. Bathrooms are full of porcelain and glass and mirrors. If a blast wave hits, that room becomes a blender of shrapnel. Same for the kitchen. You have heavy appliances, hanging cabinets, and glassware. If the building shakes, those cabinets can come off the wall. The kitchen is a hazard zone, not a sanctuary.
Right, and the lobby of a building is often just a glass box. So the S-O-P-eight hierarchy is very specific. Number one is your Mamad, the reinforced safe room. If you do not have that, number two is a public shelter, provided you can reach it in time. Number three is the inner stairwell of the building, specifically below the top two floors and above the first floor. The stairwell is the structural spine of the building. It is the strongest part because it is designed to hold the weight of the stairs and provide a fire exit.
And if you cannot get to the stairwell, you look for an inner room with as few exterior walls as possible and no windows. You want to put as many layers of concrete between you and the outside world as possible. It is the sandwich effect. If you are in the middle of the building, the outer rooms act as a buffer. But you have to stay away from the windows. Even if the rocket does not hit your building, the sonic boom or a nearby impact can shatter every pane of glass for a block. Shrapnel isn't just metal; it is the glass from your own living room.
I have seen that happen, and it is no joke. Now, before we move to the actual siren response, I want to touch on S-O-P-five, which is readiness for the elderly or those with limited mobility. This is a gap in a lot of official advice. If you cannot run to a shelter in ninety seconds, what do you do? You cannot just tell someone to "hurry up" if they use a walker or a wheelchair.
This is where the buddy system and engineering your environment come in. For someone with limited mobility, the protocol suggests pre-selecting the safest possible spot inside the apartment and making it as resilient as possible. This might mean installing grab rails along the path to that spot or moving a heavy table that they can get under. It also means having a pre-arranged communication plan with a neighbor who knows to check on them the moment the siren ends. You are essentially building a human network to compensate for physical limitations. It is about acknowledging the constraint and designing a workaround rather than ignoring it.
It is about being realistic. You cannot wish away a mobility issue, but you can plan for it. Okay, so we have covered the readiness. The postures are set. Now, the siren goes off. This is Category Two: The Siren Response Cards. Daniel designed these like the quick reference cards you see in the cockpit of a Boeing seven thirty-seven. Herman, walk us through S-O-P-six, the general response. This covers ten different scenarios.
This card is vital because you are not always sitting on your couch when it happens. If you are driving, the rule is clear: pull over to the side of the road, get out of the car, and move away from it. A car is a fuel tank wrapped in glass. You do not want to be in it. You lie flat on the ground and cover your head with your hands. Why lie flat? Because the blast wave of an explosion travels outward and upward. By being flat on the ground, you are below the primary path of the overpressure and shrapnel. If you are on a bus, the driver should stop and open the doors, and you follow the same principle.
What about elevators? That is a common question, especially in taller buildings.
Never. If you are in an elevator and a siren starts, you get out at the very next floor. If the power goes out, you are trapped in a metal box while things are potentially falling on the building. It is a nightmare scenario for emergency responders. The S-O-P is very firm on this: no elevators during an alert. And here is the big rule that people always ignore: the ten minute wait. Corn, you know how much this bothers me when people go out early.
Yeah, tell them why that matters. People hear the boom or the all-clear and they immediately want to go out to the balcony to see what happened or check on their neighbors. It is a natural human instinct, but it is a deadly one.
That is how people get hurt or killed by interceptor debris. When the Iron Dome or another system intercepts a threat, that metal does not just vanish. It falls. Large, jagged, hot pieces of shrapnel can fall for several minutes after the initial impact. We are talking about pieces of metal falling from twenty thousand feet. The ten minute rule is a technical buffer to ensure that everything that went up has come back down. You stay in your protected space for a full ten minutes after the siren ends. No exceptions. It is the "curiosity trap," and it is a major cause of secondary casualties.
And then we have S-O-P-seven, which is specifically for those with infants. As a parent, this is where the cognitive load is highest. You are not just thinking about yourself; you are thinking about a helpless human being. Daniel’s protocol for this is brilliantly simple: Rule number one is pick up the baby first. Do not look for the diaper bag. Do not look for the pacifier. Do not try to unfold the stroller.
You leave the stroller. It is a bulky, slow moving object that will trap you in a doorway or a stairwell. The S-O-P suggests pre-positioning a baby carrier, like a soft wrap or a structured carrier, right by the door or the bed. You grab the child, you get them in the carrier if you have time, or you just hold them and move. Every second you spend looking for a bottle is a second you are not in a protected space. It is a cold calculation, but it is the one that saves lives. You prioritize the person over the supplies.
It is a brutal logic, but it is necessary. You are prioritizing the person over the supplies. Now, let’s shift gears to the long-term infrastructure. This is Category Three. This is for when the immediate threat might have passed, but the environment is still unstable. We are talking about S-O-P-nine, the seventy-two hour kit. Herman, you are a bit of a nerd about gear. What is the high-protein version of this kit?
Well, you have to distinguish between a stationary kit and a go-bag. S-O-P-nine is the stationary kit. This stays in your protected space or your shelter. You need four liters of water per person per day. Most people underestimate how much water they actually need, especially in the heat of an Israeli summer. Then you need food that requires zero preparation. No cooking, no adding water if possible. Think canned goods with pull-tabs, energy bars, and dried fruit. You also need infant supplies if that applies to you—formula, diapers, wipes.
And power. We always talk about power in these episodes.
You need a serious power bank. Not just a little one for your phone, but something that can keep your devices running for three days. And don't forget a battery powered radio. In a major event, the cellular networks can get congested or go down. The Home Front Command broadcasts on specific radio frequencies, and that might be your only reliable source of truth. You also need a basic first aid kit, but more importantly, you need the knowledge of how to use it. A tourniquet is useless if you have never practiced putting one on.
I think people also forget the medical side. If you have prescription meds, you need a two week supply in that kit. You cannot assume the pharmacy will be open or that you can get there. And let’s talk about S-O-P-ten, the Family Emergency Plan. This includes a mnemonic that I think is really helpful for remembering what to do when you have to act. It is N-O-T-I-F-Y, S-H-U-T-O-F-F, D-I-S-T-A-N-C-E, C-L-O-S-E, A-C-T, and L-I-S-T-E-N.
Let’s break that down. NOTIFY means making sure everyone in the house knows the alert is active. Don't assume they heard it. SHUTOFF is for utilities if there is a direct threat to the building, like gas valves. A small fire can become a disaster if the gas is still flowing. DISTANCE is about moving away from hazards like windows or heavy furniture. CLOSE means shutting the blast doors and windows of your Mamad. ACT is the actual sheltering—getting into the correct position. and LISTEN is for the official instructions on the radio or the app. It is a sequence. If you follow the sequence, you don't skip steps. It is like a pre-flight checklist.
It is a sequence that prevents the "freeze" response. Now, Herman, one thing that Daniel emphasizes in S-O-P-twelve is information discipline. This is something we see failing all the time on social media, especially during active events.
This is a pet peeve of mine. When something happens, everyone wants to be the first to share a video or a rumor they heard on Telegram. S-O-P-twelve is very clear: do not spread unverified rumors. It creates panic, it can give away the location of impacts to the enemy, and it clogs up the communication channels that emergency services need. Information discipline is a form of civic duty during a conflict. You stick to the official channels: the police at one hundred, the ambulance service at one hundred one, the fire department at one hundred two, and the Home Front Command at one hundred three or one hundred four for the electric company.
It is also about your own mental health. Constant scrolling through unofficial reports just spikes your cortisol and makes you less effective at following the other S-O-Ps. Now, we should also mention S-O-P-thirteen, the Go-Bag. This is different from the stationary kit.
Right. The Go-Bag is what you grab if you are told you have to leave your home immediately. It is smaller, more portable. It has your essential documents, a change of clothes, basic hygiene items, and your chargers. The key here is maintenance. A Go-Bag is useless if the batteries in your torch are dead or the snacks expired in twenty twenty-two. The S-O-P suggests a monthly audit. Check the dates, test the gear, and rotate the water. If it is not ready to go right now, it is not a go-bag; it is just a bag of trash.
I like that it includes a section for pets too, in S-O-P-fifteen. People often forget that their dogs and cats are going to be terrified. They can sense your stress, and they might hide in hard-to-reach places.
You need a pet go-bag. Seventy-two hours of food, a leash, a carrier, and very importantly, copies of their vaccination records. If you end up in a public shelter or a hotel, you might need to prove your pet is vaccinated. And for the pet's sake, have a favorite toy or a blanket that smells like home. It sounds minor, but reducing a pet's stress reduces the owner's stress, which makes everyone safer. Also, if you have a service dog, S-O-P-fourteen covers the specific documentation you need to ensure they can stay with you in any facility.
It is all connected. It is a system. If one part of the system fails, it puts pressure on the rest. We have covered a lot of ground here, Herman. From the ninety second window to the seventy-two hour kit. What I find so powerful about Daniel’s approach is that it takes the "fear" out of the equation and replaces it with "agency." You aren't just a victim of circumstances; you are an operator following a protocol. You are engineering your own safety.
That is the goal. Resilience is not about not being afraid; it is about having a plan that is stronger than your fear. If you live in an older building without a Mamad, you have a technical challenge to solve. These S-O-Ps are the manual for solving that challenge. They are open source because safety should not be behind a paywall. You can go to the GitHub repository, download them, print them out, and customize them for your own apartment. You can even translate them if you need to.
And that is a great transition to our practical takeaways. If you are listening to this and you live in a high-threat environment, or even if you don't, there are things you can do today. Herman, what is the number one thing?
Audit your shelter today. Do not wait for a siren. Walk the route. Time it. If the door is locked, find out who has the key. If there is a code, put it in your phone contacts under a name like "Emergency Shelter." Do it now when your heart rate is seventy beats per minute, not when it is one hundred forty. Check the ventilation. Check the lighting. If you can't see the floor, you can't be safe on it.
My takeaway would be the "Pre-Positioning" rule. Look at your environment through the lens of a ninety second sprint. Where are your shoes? Where is your torch? If they are not in the same place every night, you are wasting precious seconds. Create a "launch pad" near your bed or your front door where your essentials live. This includes your go-bag, your keys, and your charged phone.
And let’s not forget digital hygiene. We talked about this in episode seven hundred seventy-nine, about OpSec in the digital age. Make sure your emergency contacts are set up on your phone so they can be reached even if the screen is locked. Download the offline maps for your area. Make sure you have the official Home Front Command app installed and that the alerts are set to override "Do Not Disturb" mode. That is a big one. I have seen people sleep through alerts because their phone was on silent.
That is a critical point. The technology is only as good as the settings you choose. Okay, Herman, we have gone deep on the technical side of these S-O-Ps. I think it is important to remind people that this is a living project. Since it is on GitHub, people can contribute, they can suggest improvements, and they can adapt it for different languages or regions. It is a community-driven safety manual.
It is the beauty of the open-source community. We are better when we share what works. And honestly, looking at the history of how these protocols evolved, they are built on the hard-earned lessons of people who have lived through this for decades. It is a synthesis of official guidance and practical, boots-on-the-ground experience. It is about taking the "general advice" and turning it into "specific action."
It really is. And if you found this discussion helpful, or if you have your own tips for emergency readiness in older buildings, we would love to hear from you. You can get in touch through the contact form on our website at myweirdprompts dot com. We are always looking for ways to improve these discussions and share resources that actually make a difference.
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It really does. We have been doing this for over thirteen hundred episodes now, and the community that has grown around "My Weird Prompts" is just incredible. Whether you are a regular listener or you just stumbled across this episode because you were looking for safety tips, we are glad you are here. We believe that engineering a better life starts with engineering a safer one.
And if you want to make sure you never miss an episode, head over to myweirdprompts dot com to find the R-S-S feed and all the different ways to subscribe. You can also find us on Telegram by searching for "My Weird Prompts" to get a notification every time a new episode drops. We often share links to the resources we discuss, like Daniel’s GitHub repo, over there.
Alright, Herman, I think we have covered the essentials. This has been a bit of a different episode, more tactical and focused, but given the world we live in, I think it is one of the most important ones we have done. It is about shifting from "hoping for safety" to "engineering for safety."
I agree. Safety is a discipline, not a lucky break. Thanks to Daniel for the prompt and for the work he is doing on these S-O-Ps. It is a service to the community. It gives people a sense of agency in a situation that can otherwise feel completely overwhelming.
Well said. This has been My Weird Prompts. I am Corn Poppleberry.
And I am Herman Poppleberry. Stay safe out there, everyone. We will talk to you in the next one.
Take care.
Until next time.
You know, Herman, I was thinking about that ten minute rule while you were talking. It is so counterintuitive because the human instinct is to run outside as soon as the noise stops. We want to see, we want to help, we want to connect. But that is exactly when the secondary risks are highest. It is a technical trap.
It is the "curiosity trap." We see it in all kinds of emergency management. People survive the primary event and then get taken out by the secondary effects because they let their guard down. In aviation, they call it "get-home-itis" or "completion bias." You are so close to being safe that you skip the final safety checks. The ten minute rule is the final safety check of a siren response. It is the most boring ten minutes of your life, but it might be the most important.
It is like that old saying: the most dangerous part of a flight is the first five minutes and the last five minutes. In a rocket alert, the most dangerous part is the first ninety seconds and the ten minutes after the all-clear. You have to respect the physics of falling objects.
Precisely. It is about understanding the physics of the situation. Shrapnel from an interception can be falling from twenty or thirty thousand feet. It takes time for gravity to bring those pieces down. If you are outside during that window, you are basically standing under a rain of jagged, superheated metal. No one wins that fight.
It is a sobering thought, but it is one that reinforces why these protocols matter. It is not about being paranoid; it is about being informed. It is about replacing anxiety with a checklist. Anyway, we should probably wrap it up before I start getting into the terminal velocity of interceptor fragments. I know you have the spreadsheets ready for that.
Save that for the next episode, Corn. I actually do have a spreadsheet on fragment dispersion patterns if you are interested.
You know me too well. Let's keep that for the deep-dive patrons. Alright, thanks for listening, everyone.
Goodbye for now.
Bye.
Take care.
Seriously, go check your shoes.
And your water.
Right. Bye.
