It’s a message the agency has been pushing for years, and with only relative success. Even 9/11 did not scare America into compliance: A 2007 study by the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, for instance, showed that 80 percent of Americans were “concerned” about another terror attack, but only one-third were prepared for a major disaster. And last year, a FEMA survey found that while the number of individuals who had set aside disaster supplies at home had crept up from 50 percent in 2003 to 57 percent in 2009, the agency was still far from its goal of having 80 percent of households prepared with a communications plan, disaster supplies and practice at evacuating or weathering a disaster at home.

Part of the difficulty is the unpredictable and varied nature of disasters. Topping the news right now is a diminishing Hurricane Earl, which the East Coast has been bracing for all week and now looks like it’ll have a minimal impact. But across the world, a major New Zealand city is reeling from a 7.4 magnitude earthquake. Unlike hurricanes, earthquakes for the most part occur at random (although the Himalayas apparently have a winter earthquake season). In the United States, Californians deal with earthquakes most frequently, but Seattle is also at risk and New York City has had a couple in its day.

In a terrorist attack, an hurricane or an earthquake, it surely won’t hurt to have at hand a gallon of water per person, per day, three days worth of food, a flashlight, dust masks, a first aid kit and other items FEMA recommends. But preparedness is more complicated than that. It means knowing that in an earthquake, for instance, it’s smarter to stay inside a building than to try to get out, the agency says.

In a earthquake-prone area, it might be easier to see the use of remembering that dictate than of keeping uneaten cans of beans under the sink for an emergency that never seems to come. But FEMA can’t tailor its national preparedness messages that closely. It can only prompt people to think about these problems in a general way and hope they’ll seek out more information their own.

The Hill’s Roxana Tiron lends context:

Dicks would take the gavel of the Defense panel as the Pentagon decides whether Boeing would win a $35 billion contract for a new fleet of midair refueling tankers. Boeing has been going head to head with a team made up of Northrop Grumman and EADS North America. The Pentagon is scheduled to issue a final request for proposals Feb. 23….

Defense insiders have called Dicks an unapologetic supporter of Boeing, particularly when it comes to the tanker program. Boeing would build the tanker aircraft in Washington state, where it has large commercial aircraft operations. Dicks has long opposed the tanker contract going to EADS, the parent company of Airbus — Boeing’s rival on the commercial market.

Dicks’ office claims that the Washington Democrat, while interested in the contract, won’t enter the fray any more than he already has following Murtha’s death, Tiron reports. Still, the relationship between Dicks and Boeing is a close one. The aerospace giant is the top contributor to Dicks over the course of his congressional career, giving more than $142,000 since the 1998 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That trend remains true this cycle, with Dicks already raking in $10,500 from the Seattle company, which makes him the sixth highest recipient in Congress, CRP notes.

Nielsen released its numbers for the top 56 media markets in the country today. These metropolitan areas had the highest inauguration viewership yesterday:

And these had the lowest viewership:

So people who could most easily come see the inauguration in person — those from D.C., Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina — watched from their sofas, while people who live more than 1,000 miles away either made the trek to the capital or didn’t bother to tune in.

Even stranger, the three metropolitan areas at the bottom of this list are arguably the three most liberal in the country: Seattle, Portland and San Francisco.

I suppose it’s possible that people from the D.C. area are simply more politically engaged — much more engaged — than their counterparts from farther afield, but this still strikes me as deeply strange.

Anyone have a better explanation? I await your comments …

Will this Pacific Northwestern YouTube outreach move anyone? Well, count this blogger in. As a lifelong Seattlite, I grew up following my parents around the historic market — a community-supported zone that favors local farmers and artisans — as they bought fruit and vegetables from friendly shops like Manzo’s, or nabbed some fresh halibut. Naturally, the fish have some airborne cameos in one of the quirkier Obama videos this season: