Farm Disasters Are Predictable Emergencies  Bad things will
happen, but the consequences of a 'predictable emergency' can be
managed.  Published on: Jun 19, 2013  By John Shutske  Farming
is chock-full of risk. Storms, fires, floods, droughts, and
injuries fill newspapers every week and cost hundreds of
millions in damage. While I worked on this article, I had a
dairy farmer friend who experienced major damage from violent
winds, and a big fire damaged two-thirds of a large Wisconsin
organic milk cooperative.  What should we do?  Should we chalk
it up to bum luck and resign ourselves to the phenomenon that
"bad stuff just happens?"  Bad things will happen – but the
consequences of a "predictable emergency" can be managed.  We
often talk about disasters.  But, disasters are usually the
result of a predictable emergency gone awry. And, the biggest
factor that determines whether or not an emergency becomes a
disaster is a speedy response.  On a farm, a response that
occurs in minutes or hours versus days (or wee