Are You Prepared?

By Thad Plumley

I received an email that I was sure was an example of the children’s telephone game where an original message gets distorted after it has been spoken into someone else’s ears a few times.

The email from a fellow condominium board member said a neighbor had been burglarized and we needed to alert the residents in our community. When she described the crime, I was sure the story was out of sorts, as it sounded like a plot from an action movie.

The board member wrote criminals dressed like workers arrived in a truck, used a ladder to climb onto a roof, drilled a hole in the roof with a saw to get into the home, robbed it, and then left. Oh, and it was on a
Sunday afternoon across from our clubhouse where a party was taking place.

No way, I thought. That must be the telephone game on steroids or the plot of the latest film where Tom Cruise saves the day while hanging upside down from a plane.

Then my wife called saying she was talking to a detective about a robbery where people dressed as workers climbed onto a roof . . . .

No. Way.

Way. As in it is way too easy to get complacent and think bad things will never happen to you or near you.

I’m proof. My wife and I purchased a video doorbell a few months before the robbery. The salesperson asked us if we wanted to add video cameras on the side and back of our unit as well. While appreciating the up-sell attempt, we declined feeling we live in a good community and already have a security system on our
doors and windows.

Had we had those cameras, the roof robbers would have been recorded in action. Guess who has cameras now.

Your business needs them too. You may think it is a sad commentary on the world we live in, but let me tell you, we’re living in it. Cameras, lights with motion detectors, and alarms on your doors and windows need to be a part of your office and shop.

Your company name engraved on the tools used by your crews and GPS trackers and cameras in their work vehicles that stay outside overnight in the company yard or on jobsites from time to time need to be part of your life too.

At a minimum, do all of that. Just know that’s the minimum.

Our condominium board is considering adding cameras and license plate readers positioned at the entrances and exits of our community. After sitting in on the presentation about the safety technology, I came away impressed.

More than 5000 communities and businesses around the country utilize the platform offered by this vendor. The feeds are accessed by more than 2000 law enforcement agencies. Crimes are solved every day with it.

I don’t know when someone will attempt something again in my community. It may be years from now. But I’ve learned the odds are something will eventually happen because crime happens every day everywhere.

When it does happen again, I’ll be ready. Will you?

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Thad Plumley is the editor of WWJ and the director of publications for the National Ground Water Association. He can be reached at tplumley@ngwa.org, or (800) 551-7379, ext. 1594.