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mtthwhgn phone home…

mtthwhgn phone home…

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I doubt I’ll be alone in confessing that E.T. makes me cry. Especially that part where he’s getting frustrated that he can’t contact his family.

et-phone-home

Now, anthropomorphic aliens aside, I think there is a resilience message here. (Yes, I can pretty much get a resilience message from any TV or Film – feel free to challenge me!)

Imagine yourself in his situation, due to a turn of events, lets say a disaster; you’re unable to get in touch with your friends and relatives, or find out information via the internet or social media. This could happen for a variety of reasons – the sheer number of people trying to use the network could cause overloading, similar to the effect observed every year on New Years Eve.

It could also occur because your phone has been damaged or the battery runs flat as you’re using it. This is a particular problem for smartphone users as many of the apps suck battery life even in sleep mode, and research from Purdue University suggests that even “a fully charged phone battery can be drained in as little as five hours”.

Being a committed emergency planning professional, I practice what I preach and have a Zombie Apocalypse Bag ready and waiting. Two of the items in this bag are designed to enable me to charge my phone, so you’d think that would be enough. However, an article in the New York Times yesterday, summarising research from the Electric Power Research Institute, has made me question how effective these solutions would be – answer: not very.

  • From my solar charger – I’d need 6-8 hours of sunlight to charge a phone by 25%.
  • From the hand cranked charger with built in torch – I’d need to continually crank at a rate of 2 cranks per second for two and a half hours to get the same, 25%, level of charge.
  • I don’t have a car, but if I could use a cigarette lighter socket charger, then I have a reasonable chance of getting 25% charge within an hour – but it does present risks of draining the car battery and might need to be done in a ventilated area.
  • If I had a battery charger, I could get a 15% charge in 30 minutes, which sounds like a much more effective rate of charge – but would require me to invest in a supply of long-life AA batteries

This post was originally written for my work blog, where I posed a question to readers about what I could do to improve my own resilience. I’ll bring you a breakdown of the responses soon (because this site needs some graphs!).

But for now, how much do you rely on your phone? Have you considered what you’d do without it?

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/purplelime

The Impossible

The Impossible

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I’ve seen my fair share of disaster films, and the ones which resonate with me most, are those based on true stories. Last night I went to see The Impossible. I’d recommend that you go too…here’s the trailer.

Yes, Emmerich’s frozen New York is impressive, but lets face it, chances of Snowball Earth within a few days is pretty unlikely. Bayona’s tsunami however, well I remember that quite vividly.

Following the earthquake on Boxing Day 2004, I spent many of the subsequent days rapidly picking up German so that I could understand the TV reports (I was in Austria at the time). Similarly to 9/11, the scenes that were being shown looked like the work of Hollywood.

It wasn’t too long before some other breaking news slipped the tsunami down the agenda and out of mind of those not directly involved. However, as I watched the film yesterday Bayona did a great job at recreating the terror and posed some important questions about emergency preparedness (I wonder if he knew he was doing this?).

I don’t want to spoil the film for you, but difficult decisions abound

  • Do you think about risk before going on holiday? What preparations do you make?
  • Would you rescue the abandoned child or would you get yourself to safety? Could you separate yourself from your children to search for other family members?
  • What are your natural abilities, how could you use them to help the response effort?
  • How do you think you would cope without everyday luxuries? Language barriers?
  • Would you let other people use your mobile phone knowing that you can’t charge it when the battery runs out?
  • Do you operate on the patient with a limited chance of survival? How do you prioritise who gets scarce resources?

The rational part of me disagreed with some choices that the main characters made in response to these quandaries; but they weren’t wrong. Until we’re in that situation I think its impossible to predict what our response would be; and I think that’s the take away message.

Disaster films are not documentaries – they exaggerate reality and always have plot devices designed to elicit an emotive response. But the reason I love them, is that they continually ask “what would you do” and getting people to consider that is a great step forward.

Daring to learn lessons

Daring to learn lessons

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Lessons Learned

The public sector does lots of good for a great many people, but occasionally it doesn’t perform as well as it should. Sadly, it’s easy to recall examples of this. We increasingly live in a culture which doesn’t tolerate failure, so how is this Preppers applicable to emergency planning?

It’s a tricky semantic road to navigate, but a cause of personal frustration is that lessons are repeatedly ‘identified’ but less frequently are they ‘learned’.

I recently developed a database of lessons from exercises dating back to 2004. It’s a beast, but it was actually a really rewarding piece of work to undertake; helping identify common patterns and themes, which despite being identified over the course of multiple exercises, are yet to be resolved.

Communications is probably the prime example (ask any emergency planner!). Countless exercises and incidents have identified issues with communications, and yet despite all the investment in bespoke equipment and training, it still features in exercise and incident debriefs.

So why do some lessons remain unlearned? Are there bigger obstacles in the way? Are we aiming too high? Are there complex cognitive factors at play which stop us learning from history and experience?

I’m yet to read Seth Godin’s latest book, but having heard his comment that “nobody cares about all the hours you spent with the committee whittling your best work…cause a ruckus” I’ve added it to my wishlist.

The public, quite rightly, wouldn’t tolerate impaired emergency response where an exercise had previously highlighted issues, which hadn’t been subsequently acted upon. Even if that lesson had been debated and discussed at length in public sector boardrooms.

Perhaps Godin has the answer for addressing those lessons which fail to be learned? Maybe resilience practitioners need to be more daring, more imaginative; to overcome these hurdles and achieve the art of learning lessons.

In any case, my commute reading for January is sorted!

Image source: chadstutzman.com

Debunking the Bunker

Debunking the Bunker

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London Bunker. Source: Wikipedia

I remember as a child, my grandmother telling me tales of the Second World War. There was probably a dash of artistic license, but somehow she managed to turn gruesome scenes into Enid Blyton style adventures; many of which took place in or around her family’s Anderson Shelter. During the war, going underground was effective for both the public and government, with much of the UK war effort coordinated from ‘secret’ bunkers beneath Whitehall.

Why did wartime bunkers work? They provided a degree of risk mitigation from falling bombs, however that is a much lower risk today (thankfully) and therefore we need to ensure that our arrangements keep pace with contemporary risk.

The key to building resilience is to get out of the bunker (at least figuratively), to engage the public through sharing information on risks they face and actions they can take to prevent, prepare and recover.

From land use planning and architecture, to the design of staff and supplier contracts, investment in diversity of communication technologies and recognition of the importance of business continuity, I think we’re beginning to see a similar shift in emergency preparedness. It’s a slow process, but I hope that eventually resilience becomes as habitual as brushing your teeth, wearing seat belts or recycling waste. 

Note: this post was originally published in Dec 2012 but was updated in Sept 2021 after I discovered some of the links were redirecting to gambling websites. I’m not sure how long those link errors were present and apologies if you have been taken to inappropriate content by mistake.

Neighbours and Communities – the murky waters of resilience

Neighbours and Communities – the murky waters of resilience

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harold_bishop

The young married couple next door have just had their first baby, the lady across the street gives music lessons and the family next door have recently renovated their bathroom…not exactly a close relationship.

For his book The Comfort of Things, anthropologist Daniel Miller interviewed residents of a southeast London street, and concluded that the street was now merely a “random juxtapositions of households”. Increasingly, where we ‘choose’ to live is driven by house prices, transport systems and proximity to work and leisure, rather than by personal relationships.

Perhaps we don’t have conversations over the garden fence with the neighbours any more, but we haven’t stopped having conversations. We’re in the digital age and in many ways we’re more connected than ever before. Just a quick analysis of my ‘social networks’ and I’m linked to some 900 people.

According to Australian TV, “Neighbours, should be there for one another”. But are we? Are there any real Harold Bishops out there?

Often, my starting point, rather than a definition, is to understand the evolution of a word, and I found that Neighbour is derived from “Neahgebur”, a mashup of Old English words for ‘near’ and ‘dweller’.

Community Resilience was touted, way before Big Society as a new paradigm in resilience. “Develop Community Flood Plans” cried central government…but I’m actually more likely to seek assistance from nearby friends and relatives, than I am the piano teacher  in the house opposite (lovely as she may be). “Talk to each other about community emergency response” came another cry…I haven’t even met the people that live Preppers to one side of us, let alone talk to them, and I’ve been there for two years.

I have no doubt that individuals and communities should take action to prevent, prepare, respond and recover from emergencies, complementing the official response of the emergency services and other organisations. However, this the Community Resilience waters are cloudy! Geographic communities are comparatively easy to identify and liaise with, but they are, in my experience, less likely to be the networks used. Whilst more challenging, organic and distributed communities of interest or identity should be where we’re focusing our efforts.

Like all of us, I’m a member of multiple communities (family and friendship groups, colleagues, university alumni to name but a few), each of which have unique and complex relationships. The challenge, but also the approach which will bring the greatest benefit, to Resilient Communities work is to look at our conceptualisation of community, of what it means to be a neighbour, and then to approach each of those networks in a bespoke and relevant way.

 

Image Source: FreemantleMedia

Doomsday Preppers

Doomsday Preppers

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I’m not sure if you’ve seen this show which airs on National Geographic? I hadn’t until ‘Doomsday Preppers’ were mentioned in episode 08.17 of Grey’s Anatomy.

The show opens to dramatic music and rolling clouds…

“Ordinary Americans from all walks of life are taking whatever measures necessary to prepare [cut to a relatively normal looking man preparing for the total destruction of the power grid, a guy in breathing apparatus concerned about the Yellowstone super volcano and finally a lady who appears to think a plate of rice will avert financial collapse (?!)] and protect themselves from what they perceive is the fast-approaching end of the world as we know it” It’s impressive if slightly scare-mongering stuff.

But behind all the drama, and underneath the mildly mocking voiceover, is a sound message about preparing for emergencies, not just as individuals, but there is a strong emphasis on community preparedness – something that, as an Emergency Planner (more on that later), really resonates with me.

I don’t mind that my housemates mock my ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ bag (which I’ve had in various guises for 4 years now). According to the quiz on the Doomsday Preppers website, my bag would last me 2 weeks max. I’ve seen the contents of the bag, and honestly think that’s a little optimistic!

But I’m not trying to survive for 60 months, my intention, based on my appreciation of the risks that I face, is to cope for 24 hours, or get to a place of safety. There’s loads of checklists out there on what should be in your bag, but to me it’s a bit more personal than that. There would be no point in me including water purification tablets, I haven’t got the first clue about how to use them; but more than that, I can’t conceive of the situation in which I won’t have access to water (maybe that’s my own naivety?!).

Risk perception is highly subjective, and an introductory post probably isn’t the place for my thoughts on the heuristics involved, but it’s an interesting area which receives less consideration than I think it deserves, and is something that I intend to come back to.

My hope for this blog: to share my views on emergency planning and resilience, without the ‘accessibility’ trappings of my professional role; that said – the opinions here are mine and mine only, it does not reflect the views of the organisation I work for, or the organisations I work with (that’s the “boring but necessary” disclaimer out of the way!).

Now, excuse me whilst I go ready my supplies for December 21st…

Picture credit: National Geographic