Chico News: Fifteen Minutes: Patrick Hardy, disaster preparedness expert

With his new app, Disaster Hawk, Sacramento-based disaster preparedness expert Patrick Hardy aims to make disaster planning less confounding for families, small businesses and just about anybody. As COVID-19 numbers continue to rise, Hardy provides advice for preparing for ongoing stay-at-home orders and a potentially worse second wave.

You are a disaster preparedness expert by profession. Tell me a little bit about that.
I’ve been a disaster preparedness expert for 15 years. I started my career in [emergency medical services], I worked in an ambulance and I later became a paramedic instructor. And then I worked for the governor’s office in Louisiana. I moved to Louisiana around Hurricane Katrina. … I worked the BP oil spill. … And FEMA selected me in 2012 to represent all of U.S. small business, all business, actually, to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. [At 31], I was the youngest person ever selected to that post. So I spent a three-month rotation in Washington.