Is Pickleball the Key to Emergency Prep on Bainbridge?
Bainbridge Island takes its pickleball quite seriously. Ever since the game invention right here in 1965 by Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell, and Barney McCallum, islanders have devoted time, energy, and intense emotion to the sport.
The game’s inventors created pickleball to solve a minor crisis: Bored people on a summer day. Bell and Pritchard assessed the situation and on Pritchard’s property found a badminton net but no rackets, a perforated plastic ball, and some ping pong paddles. To get people up and moving, they employed the things they found in the service of a new game. Over time, refinements ensued: The net was lowered, larger paddles were created, and courts were created on asphalt so the ball could bounce.
Emergency response follows a similar playbook. You identify a problem, you use what you have to address it, and then you make refinements as needed. But emergency preparedness requires thinking about potential problems before they happen and getting ready in anticipation.
So how might pickleball be the key to emergency prep on Bainbridge? Here’s how:
If you’re a pickleball player, download the Map Your Neighborhood packet.
Make five or six copies.
Next time you’re on the pickleball court, in between your dinks, berts, and ernes, chat with the other players—like you always do. Ask them if their neighborhoods have joined Map Your Neighborhood yet. If not, give them your printed copies and tell them to email Ann Cook, the Map Your Neighborhood Team Lead.
Visit our Prepare in a Year 24 page.
In between chicken wings, chainsaw serves, and flat faces, ask the other players if they know about Prepare in a Year 24. Ask the bangers too.
Pickleballers are ultra competitive. Challenge the other players to a contest: Who can complete Prepare in a Year 24 the fastest? Which neighborhood will win the Grand Prize (a one-hour visit from the Bainbridge Island Fire Department and a rig).
If every pickleball player shoulders the responsibility, by the end of the year, we’ll have the most prepared community in Washington State!
