This is what happens when individual citizens fail to prepare for an emergency:

Nassau County officials are meeting to analyze why the county’s 911 system became overloaded during the weekend Nor’easter.

County Executive Edward Mangano has ordered an immediate review.

During the height of the storm, Mangano says some of the estimated 10,000 Nassau County 911 calls were transferred. They landed in emergency centers in nearby Suffolk County — or as far away as Albany. Typically, the system gets about 2,200 calls a day.

Mangano says officials “cannot let another day pass by without addressing this situation.”

Mr. Mangano is looking to cure the symptoms of the disease, as opposed to preventative measures to address the cause.

Rather than focusing on how the 911 system can handle tens of thousands of calls in an emergency, which, with limited staff is nearly impossible, they should be focusing on educating the public on how to deal with an emergency in the event that it occurs.

Some simple ideas that would likely cost much less money, stress and burden on the emergency 911 system would include

• educating the public on when to use the 911 emergency system
• preparing a two week reserve supply of food, water and medicine.
• acquiring emergency power generation systems
• having a home defense security plan
• creating local, neighborhood response teams to deal with a crisis on a community level

It’s simple really – unless you are a government official who believes the government should be the answer for everything.