Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Spring is a big and dangerous time for thunderstorms and tornadoes in places along the Gulf Coast, like southern Louisiana. But every place has its potential for natural disasters, right? You got wildfires out west, flooding in the east, earthquakes, hurricanes, heat waves.

It's all a bit much. And of course, with climate change, things don't seem to be getting any better.

Which is why it's important for institutions to be prepared. That's the argument Juliet

Kayeem makes in her new book, The Devil Never Sleeps.

She's a former Homeland Security analyst who has thought a lot about the inevitability of disaster.

Now, that might sound obvious, right? Be prepared. But in this interview with NPR Steve Inski,

she talks about human nature and this little thing about human nature that makes preparing so difficult.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people helping you understand why distant

events matter here at home. Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your

podcasts. Homeland Security analyst Juliette Kayam says she grew up expecting disaster. It was a side

effect of living in earthquake-prone California.

We were prepared in ways that seemed so normal, and that's how we need to get with all disasters now.

I mean, we did earthquake drills. We had a list of everyone's phone numbers. I knew where to walk to

if I was away from home. Those are the kinds of investments that we can make

on an individual level. The former Department of Homeland Security official is making an argument

for a particular kind of readiness, prepping for an age of more frequent disasters, which she

writes about in a book called The Devil Never Sleeps. In an age that we are in, where disasters are not random or rare, we basically need to learn to fail safer.

And I think that's inevitable, but I also think that it is hopeful because it will help save lives and curb destruction.

Are you assuming that the world is changing in a way that will make disasters more frequent or feel more commonplace, at least to Americans?

Yes. I mean, and I look at the numbers. I mean, if you just take a three-year period from 2017 to 2020, the United States had seven what we call hurricane disasters.

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