At the same time, a half-million Southern Californians were in the process of evacuating their homes due to the numerous wildfires from San Diego to north of Los Angeles.

Other hurricanes that have struck the Southeast and Atlantic coasts of the U.S. resulted in family decisions to move away from the coast.

Message number one from these disasters is obvious: natural and man-made events take a high toll on human life and property damage.

What’s message number two? If you live in harm’s way, you and your family may well pay an unacceptable price.

Talk about risk! If you live on or near an earthquake fault, you can expect damage, if not total destruction, from time to time. Ditto if you live in the hills and mountains that run up the California coast and inland to areas such as Big Bear and Lakes Tahoe and Arrowhead. Ditto one more time if you live along the eastern seaboard or the Gulf Coast.

Developers want to develop attractive properties, and communities in these areas want to grow – after they rebuild.

Some hearty souls say, “Well, that’s the price of living in paradise.” Others may finally be hearing message number two: The price is too high.

Property taxes tend to be high in very desirable (whatever that means) areas; the cost of land and homes is also higher; the cost of insurance is typically higher when the risk is much higher; and when special insurance is needed such as earthquake or wind and hail policies, the volume of message number two should start to rise in your head.

Let’s be practical. Before we debate the origins of the universe or the issues of global temperature, think about where you live and the risk that is involved.

Was it a car, or furniture, or did you buy a big-screen plasma television? Did you even charge your week’s groceries at your local supermarket on your Visa or American Express Card?

Have you applied for a job lately? Have you tried to buy a home even with the current tight credit market?

Look a little deeper into your ability to purchase just about anything other than with cash and the foundation for what you can buy, how much you pay for it and what interest rate you pay is based on the strength of your credit.

This small word, “credit,” is actually a big deal when it’s on paper. Credit, in general, is about your annual salary, the number of jobs you have had over the years, whether you rent or buy your housing, how many active credit cards you have and how prompt you are on making all your payments.

That information, and more, is analyzed by the credit industry and the result of your financial dealings will say a great deal about what sort of financial risk you pose to a potential lender.

It dictates, in many cases, whether you get or don’t get the car you want, or the house you want to buy, or whether you get that credit card you applied for, or that big TV you just have to have.

After your credit is established and after you have a history with it, your stewardship of this credit now leads to your credit score. This score can range from the four hundreds to the eight hundreds. The higher the number, the better your score and the more businesses will trust your ability to pay or to be a solid employee.

Your credit score is vital; something you build over a lifetime and something that can speed up or slow down your ability to enjoy life’s many benefits.

Spend wisely, don’t over extend your finances, make your monthly payments, and pay off your debts as soon as possible. The major credit bureaus have a hotline to businesses far and wide and this is one case where you really are a number as much as a person.

There are many perfectly sensible riders who drive one of these bikes, and they are easy to spot by the way they drive.

The same is true for their counterparts who weave in and out of traffic, like a flash leave you as a speck in their rear-view mirrors, and have a propensity to lead law enforcement on chases along interstates.

These are typically the under 26 year-olds, single and they are on our death watch. Did you notice the huge number of fatalities for supersport motorcycles versus all others?

Here's a thought for parents of speed demon wanna-be's. If you are paying for your childrens' fun, print out this table and stick it on your refrigerator door.

Case 1: In mid-August, the Alabama State Patrol announced a statewide "Take Back Our Highways" campaign. For five days, troopers focused on speeding, following too closely, and seatbelt use.

The campaign made headlines and broadcast news all over Alabama. It was no surprise -- except, apparently, to the 26,126 people who got tickets.

Case 2: The Atlantic churned up one heck of a hurricane called Dean. It was a major news story for more than a week as it gained strength and sped across the Caribbean.

Yet tourists flocked to Jamaica and other islands by the planeloads. Then, all of a sudden, tourists packed the airports to try to escape the Category 5 hurricane -- which many said they knew nothing about.

Case 3. How many times to authorities and safety experts have to say, "Do not attempt to cross a road when there is water moving over it?" Yet on flooding stories across Texas, the Midwest and upper-Midwest in the last several days, news cameras have taken numerous pictures of people being rescued from flooded vehicles or plucked from trees.

Case 4. How many adults and children must die across the nation simply because there was no working smoke detector in the home or apartment?

This gets more worrisome every year as natural disasters increase in strength and size, and as the safety/warning/alert messages continue to be ignored by far too many people.

There are three huge warnings here.

1. The letterhead appears to be from a large financial institution such as a bank or and insurance company.
2. The recipient stands to receive a large amount of money.
3. There is an international phone number at the bottom of the letter starting with 011-

Fraud by mail is nothing new, but in this latest round, legitimate company names are used on the letterhead and the "winning check."

The company is not harmed since the phony check is not honored by the banking system, but the individual who send his or her hard-earned money to the scammers are the real victims.

Be aware that there seems to be no end to how scammers will attempt to get your money.

Why did fully one-third of the respondents in a new survey on coastal preparedness indicate they would likely not evacuate? They believe their homes are well built, or that roads would be too crowded or that fleeing would be dangerous.

Despite the severity of the ‘04 hurricanes that swept across Florida and other states or the big two that slammed into the Gulf Coast states in ’06, coastal residents seem to show an astonishing lack of concern.

Last year, the study reported that 23 percent would not evacuate and now 33 percent say they won't go. That indicates the farther away we get from a real disaster, the more complacent the public is about preparedness and planning at the family or individual level.

Consider these points:

• What makes a home safe is not necessarily what you or I think, but what a structural engineer says after a thorough inspection.
• Roads indeed are crowded during a mass evacuation, especially when the majority of those leaving wait until the very last minute to get moving.
• The danger of leaving may be more a fear of abandoning one’s home than the safety of the individual, although traffic jams tend to bring out the worst in over-stressed drivers.

The population centers in the west face earthquakes, wildfires, mudslides and flooding while the Gulf and Atlantic coasts must deal with hurricanes, violent thunderstorms, floods, and occasional earthquakes. The Midwest is Ground Zero for huge tornadoes, flooding and occasional wildfires, while the Northeast is crowded and a may not have seen the worst yet in natural disasters, but has certainly witnessed the wrath of man-made havoc.

Either way, disaster amnesia sets in rather quickly and the human condition tends to want everything to be all right. Trouble is, reality proves over and over that no matter the warnings about the importance of weather alert radios, smoke detectors, timely evacuations and the need for stronger building codes, people die, disasters continue and building codes become more a political issue than protectionist laws.

Consider this: A sensible approach to family protection is basic preparedness, not the expectation that nothing bad will happen.

• Create and practice a home evacuation plan for fire or severe weather.
• Have at least three days supply per person of food, water, and medicines to either shelter in place or to use during an evacuation.
• A weather alert radio is a must-have, as is at least one working smoke detector and working flashlights in your home and vehicles.
• Have a water proof “go kit” ready for important family documents including a copy of insurance policies, an accurate home inventory and personal papers.
• A good rule of thumb: A family should be able to safely evacuate a home in less than 10 minutes if they are prepared.

Weather experts don't have an exact science to predict the level of activity of a hurricane season months in advance, leaving many coastal residents ill prepared to deal with a sizable storm even when forecasters clearly warn that a hurricane is only days or hours away.

So how do we communicate risk in an era of so-called mass communications when cell phones are so common, 24-hour news channels blare out real-time events virtually anywhere in the world and the Internet connects good guys, bad guys and billions of others?

One person has a warning. The message goes out. Others hear, read, or see the message while many more do not. Yet, communications is at the very least a two-way street. The outgoing message must be received and understood. There's a third component that requires the receiver of the message to take action.

Now we are at the heart of the problem. For the cost of a carton of cigarettes or a couple of 12-packs of beer, a family could get a weather alert radio or a smoke detector.

How many people have died so far in 2007 between tornadoes, flooding rivers, wildfires and apartment building fires? And we haven't yet seen a hurricane along the U.S. coast.

What ranks high on my list is the incredible stupidity on display in South Georgia and North Florida where various individuals, some a young as 12 years old, thought it would be interesting to set fires in the midst of the incredible wildfires burning in both states.

It's bad enough that more than 250,000 acres have burned. It's terrible that so many people have, at one time or another, been forced to evacuate their homes.

To deliberately set a fire when literally hundreds of firefighters from several states are working two-week shifts to try and bring these fires under control is inexcusable.

Arson is a very serious crime because a stupid act of mischief can quickly turn in to a case of murder when a fire gets out of control in an inhabited area.

In the late 1970's, the Georgia Arson Control Program was created to provide rewards of up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of an arsonist. To date, the Program has provided more than $1.3 million in rewards.

This money is donated by the property and casualty insurance industry in Georgia, and as you can imagine, there is no end to the number of individuals who continue to commit arson in spite of the fact that arsonists go to jail.

As a member of the Board of Directors of the Georgia Arson Control Program, I have seen some truly sorry excuses for deliberately setting fires. We will continue to provide rewards to those who help catch and convict arsonists.

Fortunately, the Governor is receiving very good health care and is expected to fully recover from numerous broken ribs, a compound fracture of an upper leg bone and various cuts and bruises. Our good wishes go to the Governor for a speedy recovery.

It was a newscast statement that was stunning shortly after the traffic crash. The reporter said that the Governor was "known to ride in the front seat and to not wear a seatbelt." A subsequent news report indicated the Governor was thrown from the front seat to the back of the SUV during the crash.

Yes, there is a law in New Jersey that a seatbelt is mandatory, but that's not the point.

It is important to understand what happened to Gov. Corzine during the crash.

Sadly, there is no better demonstration of the importance of a seatbelt than what happened to him in a fraction of a second on his way to a meeting.

This type of accident occurs all too frequently and the victim is typically not nearly as well known at a state governor. Whether it's you, or me, a police officer, a princess or a governor, the human body is not designed to take the type of beating it receives in a serious traffic accident when the individual is not properly restrained.

As we saw in this tragic crash, the driver is not the only one who needs to be restrained. Everyone in a vehicle is at risk and airbags alone will not replace the seatbelt. That's why airbags are called a secondary restraint system (SRS).

Two older homes, each with several children inside, caught fire.

In New York, eight children and one adult perish in the fire. Authorities discover that there were NO batteries in the two smoke detectors installed in the home.

In Maryland, the family had a fire evacuation plan and it had been rehearsed.

As is often the case, the main exit in the home, the staircase, was blocked by smoke and fire. The children knew what to do. The fire was in the front of the house and spreading, but the children went to the last bedroom on the opposite side of the home from the fire and closed the door to protect them from the smoke.

That's what made the difference. Working smoke detectors, a well-rehearsed fire evacuation plan and children who knew what to do.

These two events could have happened anywhere in the country and the likely outcome would not change.

Working smoke detectors, a plan of action and rehearsals WILL make the difference between life and death. Parents must be aware that working smoke detectors are absolutely vital. So is a plan of action.