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Category: Resilience

Facebook Emergency – who you gonna call?

Facebook Emergency – who you gonna call?

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How many of your Facebook friends do you think you could call on in an emergency, perhaps to provide you with a bed (or at least a sofa!) for a couple of nights? Complete the 3 question survey!

What’s this all about?

I finally managed to watch The Social Network this weekend. Whilst not the most exciting of films, it provided time to appreciate how much ‘social media’ has changed how many people do things.

As I mentioned previously in my post on the Boston Bombings, I’m no stranger to the digital world and have been instrumental in the implementation of corporate social media presence for two employers – recognising and emphasising the potential benefits for emergency planning and response at an early stage.

I avoid watching the news unless there is a story I’m following, and I can’t remember the last time I read a newspaper (bar a quick flick through the Metro to pass time). In general, my news consumption is now predominantly Twitter and the links it provides to other content.

The average Facebook user has 140-150 friends. To someone who was clambering at the doors to be a member when it was still exclusive to colleges in America, this seems counterintuitive. I believe there are two phenomena at work here:

  1. Simple maths (my favourite kind), as explained in The Anatomy of Facebook and
  2. The changing demographics of Facebook – as older generations embrace it, they potentially have less online friends and therefore reduce the average number of friends?

So back to my survey – how many of your Facebook friends do you think you could call on in an emergency, perhaps to provide you with a bed, or a sofa, for a couple of nights?

I don’t want to prejudice the results of my survey, but here’s my hypothesis…I expect that there are probably 10% of my friends who I wouldn’t feel too uncomfortable in contacting for assistance. Of those, I’m going to guess that 50% are local, given that Facebook is primarily locally clustered.

So for ‘Average Joe’,

  • 140 x 10% = 14 Facebook friends that he can contact
  • 14 x 50% = 7 of which live locally who could help Joe out

Joe could then approach these friends and they could plan together to support each other – what we in the trade call “Community Resilience”.

I’m going to leave the survey open for 2 weeks and then report back on how results compare to my prediction. If you want to leave any thoughts on the rudimentary maths on show here, just pop a comment in the box below.

Mix’n’match Emergency Management

Mix’n’match Emergency Management

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In 2007 I did some work on Hospital Evacuation, which is a throughly complex problem. I won’t go into the detail here, suffice to say that it brings some real ethical issues and logistical challenges. I mention this, because way back in 2007 someone that I spoke to described their Hospital Evacuation Plan as “planned improvisation”.

mixnmatchI remember recoiling at this. Here I was trying to document every last detail of how wards should work together with central hospital functions to expedite a swift evacuation, yet over here was someone essentially saying “we make it up on the day”.

Today I was having an unrelated conversation with a colleague about Command and Control (for non experts, that’s the systems and structures by which an emergency is managed). We were talking about the need to planned arrangements to have sufficient felxibility as to be applicable to a variety of circumstances. Without the ability to accurately predict the future this felxibility is vitally important.

However, you also need to balance that flexibility, with having coherence and structure, to try to bring the emergency under control as quickly as possible. I was reminded of one of those mix’n’match childrens books.

I wonder if there might be something in this approach for emergency management? Could you have a variety of planned components which all fit togther ininfinite complementary combinations?

I’m a big fan of recognising the emergent behaviour of systems and communities when under stress, but do I bring that do the formal responder organisatiopns I work with? Probably not as much as I could. There is definately a degree of creativity involved in sucessful emergency response – how can we create an environment which nurtures this without abandoning the important act of planning?

I’m going to give this some more thought over the weekend and come back with some more well rounded thoughts and suggestions – until then, I’m off to read an article about Collaborative Adhocracies….fun!

Image source: Edward Gorey via goreyana.blogspot.co.uk

CBRN vs HazMat – essential distinction or elitism?

CBRN vs HazMat – essential distinction or elitism?

Reading Time: 3 minutes

It’s something which has been bugging me for a long time, but today I feel compelled to form some coherent thoughts and put them out there, partly as catharsis, but also in the hope of instigating some debate.

I don’t see an valid reason for a distinction between CBRN and HazMat.

cbrnheader

For non-specialist readers, this translates as “Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear” and Hazardous Materials”. Traditionally, these are largely considered separately by the Emergency Services and other responders. CBRN incidents being those of a deliberate or malicious nature, and HazMat the accidents. Even acknowledging that police and security services may find this distinction useful, even accidental incidents will be treated as potentially deliberate initially and will be investigated as crimes, albeit for civil rather than criminal prosecution.

Wikipedia, starting point for the masses, provides this info in it’s Google snippit.

CBRN Wiki

Essentially saying that in addition to the intent aspects, that CBRN causes a larger number of casualties. Well, any emergency planner worth their salt will tell you that scale is just once facet of an incident. So lets have a look at some numbers…

I appreciate that non-emergency planners might not be as deeply familiar with the incidents in Bhopal (1984) and Chernobyl (1986), however, these were accidental (and therefore HazMat) incidents which caused extremely significant numbers of casualties and fatalities.

Firstly, looking at reports of casualty numbers from Bhopal…

Source Casualty Estimate
Supreme Court by the Union Government 558,125
Indian Council of Medical Research 50,000
New York Times 12,000

Even the lower estimate here, reported at the time of the event, would certainly be considered a mass casualty incident in the UK.

Assuming that if a CBRN incident can cause mass casualties, it also has the potential to cause mass fatalities. For variety, here’s some fatality statistics from Chernobyl, (also a HazMat incident).

Source Deaths Estimate
Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment  985,000
International Atomic Energy Agency 4,000
International Agency for Research on Cancer 16,000
Russian academy of sciences 200,000
Belarus national academy of sciences 93,000
Ukrainian national commission for radiation protection 500,000
Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts 50

It’s not quite as simple to infer from these figures as some are projections and others studies into the cumulative number of fatalities since the incident (which raises interesting questions, perhaps for another post, about when is an incident truly over). However, virtually all of them represent a significant number of fatalities.

Lets now take a look at arguably the most high-profile “CBRN incident”, the 1995 release of Sarin in the Tokyo subway. This information is from the Tokyo Metro Company in 2005.

Fatalities 12
Casualties 5642
(of which hospitalised) 999
(of which outpatients) 4643

I’m aware that I’m not comparing like with like here, but I think it goes someway towards demonstrating that in terms of consequences, those resulting from non-malicious means can be just as significant as those from terrorism.

Referring to these incidents with a special name seems to imply that there is something special about them, and encourages elitism. Regardless of whether they are used maliciously or not, hazardous materials are precisely that, hazardous.

There may be some very specific operational responses which are different, however generally speaking, the response principles and resources are identical. We should try to avoid confusing the public (and responders) by having two terms which essentially mean the same thing.

3D Resilience

3D Resilience

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I recently discovered news aggregator Feedly. Having been released in 2008, I’m a little behind the curve!

For some time I’ve seen the inherent value of RSS feeds, but haven’t been able to figure out a way of making them work for me. However, Feedly (I’m not on commission, I’m sure other products are available!) seems to do just what I’ve been looking for. I have begun using Feedly to collate resilience blogs that I regularly check in on, and it’s really handy to have summaries available on the go without having to navigate to particular blogs.

Today Chris Bene’s article Making the Most of Resilience popped up in my feed, so I thought I’d check it out, and I’m glad I did.

Whilst primarily approaching resilience from a development angle, a diagram explaining resilience is applicable in an emergency management context.

3d resilience

Bene states that three types of capacity are important in living with change and uncertainty

  • absorptive capacity – the ability to cope with the effects of shocks and stresses
  • adaptive capacity – the ability of individuals or societies to adjust and adapt to shocks and stresses, but keep the overall system functioning in broadly the same way
  • transformative capacity – the ability to change the system fundamentally when the way it works is no longer viable

Im my experience, much of the work on resilience in a UK context is around developing the former, and it links back to an earlier post about developing a wider range of options for countering terrorism.

How can resilience professionals help to develop ‘softer’ approaches to preparing to emergencies which aren’t just about hardening, strengthening and fallback systems. How can we better embrace opotunities to transform both communities and places? I imagine that developing resilience is more likley to be sucessful where interventions reflect the three dimensions on the continuum.

Keep Ma’am and Carry On

Keep Ma’am and Carry On

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Emergencies, thankfully, don’t happen often. However, this means there are limited opportunities to validate the plans which are developed to determine whether they will be effective.

Exercising provides some level of validation, providing a realistic yet fictional scenario against which to assure organisations, governments and the public of the capability to respond to certain situations (that said, there are many alternatives to exercises, which can be time and resource intensive).

Exercise Wintex-Cimex was held in 1983 and looked at a Cold War scenario. Today, the text of a speech writen for the Queen was released from the National Archives – see the images below.

queens1 queens2

As you’d expect with a message from the Monarch on the announcement of World War 3, reassurance, solidarity and community emerge as key themes, as well as support to British troops. Whilst it was never officially used, the Queen’s message chimes very nicley with the Keep Calm and Carry On message developed during World War 2. I wonder how well this sat with the Protect and Survive messages?

I have developed, facilitated and participated in a wide range of exercises at local and national level. One of the exercises saw me undertake a very similar task, writing a statement for the Mayor of London. Who knows, maybe in 30 years that will be released to similar fanfare!

Should you worry about #SquirrelPlague?

Should you worry about #SquirrelPlague?

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I’m not sure if you’ve seen the news yet of the squirrel found in a Los Angeles park which tested positive for bubonic plague?

Squirrel

Avid readers may have been my recent Black Death post, but there’s nothing like a topical blog post, so I thought I’d come back to it in light of today’s news.

In schools across the (Eng)land, children are taught that between 1665 and 1666 anywhere between 15-50% of the UK population was wiped out by bubonic plague. However, this was just part of an extended period of intermittent plague epidemics which began in 1347, killing between 75-200 million people. Pretty significant!

So given the identification of Yersinia pestis in LA, should we be worried?

The simple answer is no (not least because in its Bubonic phase it is not highly contagious) . Sporadic cases of plague occur from time to time in both wild and domesticated animals. On occasion it is also found in humans, with 999 probable or confirmed cases between 1990 and 2010. The fact that Plague has been identified isn’t, in itself, a cause for concern. Early treatment with antibiotics, which weren’t available in the 1600’s, is very effective.

For outbreaks of novel disease, public health agencies take a number of proactive measures, such as the closure of the park and contact tracing of people potentially exposed, to try and reduce the spread of disease. From media reports, it looks as though all the measures that I would expect to be implemented at this early stage have been.

Plague is often high on the list of organisms that could be used by terrorists. This is nothing new, in fact, there is evidence that early Mongol armies casually tossed plague infected corpses over fortress walls in an effort to defeat their enemies in the 1346 Siege of Caffa. And there is certainly a general level of anxiety around the term, having even been incorporated into daily language “to avoid something like the plague” (although this probably owes to earlier use of the term plague in the medical profession in a more generic sense).

Plague has a complex biology; requiring the involvement of fleas and rodents and consequently on climatic conditions, as well as a relationship with social factors such as sanitation, healthcare and environment. Theoretically, the pneumonic plague form of infection has a potential for person-to-person transmission, however a relatively short infective period and poor adaptation to transmission by respiratory routes mean that it is still not highly communicable.

In 1994 in Surat in India, 52 people died from pneumonic plague. However, things quickly got out of hand, partly as a result of misinformation in the media. Therefore, whilst its right that health authorities in the states are talking this outbreak seriously, and it will be interesting to see how the media handle the story when eastern news agencies wake up. But, there really is little cause for alarm.

As my colleague John Twigg at UCL states, the most dangerous aspect today, would be unrestrained use of the word plague.

 

Image source: foxnews.com (I don’t think this is the squirrel in question!)

Disaster Frontpage Analysis

Disaster Frontpage Analysis

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I was browsing the interwebs last week and came across webdesigner Christian Annyas’s site, specifically this post about 9/11 Newspaper headlines: design and typography. His observation that newspapers have shifted away from text in favour of large format high-quality photographs is interesting, and is certainly evidenced in my collation of Boston Bombing frontpages.

The Seattle Times frontpage was typical of the sample he looked at. A single word headline, with the rest of the page given over to an evocative image.

911 seattle

The Wall Street Journal was a notable exception, at least managing to string together a sentance headline which summarised the story. However, the page was still dominated by a photograph.

911 wsj

During the media coverage of the London Bombings in 2005, there were frequent calls for viewers to “submit their pictures and video”. We had entered the age of the Citizen Journalist (a term which has fallen out of favour since). As cameraphones and smartphones have became more pervasive, it has become increasingly easy for any member of the public to have their images syndicated across the mainstream media. I’d thought this was the driver behind this trend in newspaper front pages.

However, what Christian’s article demonstrates is that this was happening in America in 2001. That’s before Apple released the iPhone, before Facebook launched and before we had the ability to tweet. So if it’s not the ability to source pictures quickly from the scene of an emergency then what is behind this change?

There have been developments in paper and printing technology which have enabled full colour high resolution images to be reproduced. Or perhaps developments in printing technology have allowed for higher fidelity reproductions of photos. However, the cynical side of me feels that this could all boil down to economics. A good front page sells papers.

What do you think? Are newspaper publishers playing to our emotive side? How does this affect how we consume news – have you bought a paper on the basis of a good photo? Is this a trend which spills over into other forms of media? I’m interested in your thoughts – leave them below!

Image Source: annyas.com

Have I Got News For You

Have I Got News For You

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Regular readers will be aware that I’ve been working on a project called Anytown over recent months. It’s a project looking at complexities and interdependencies between systems and how that can impact on resilience. Previous blog posts about it are here…here and here.

Rather excitingly, you can now find out about Anytown in Resilience, the magazine of the Emergency Planning Society. Yes, there is now a remote possibility that I will be quoted on BBC prime-time programming, having been published in a niche trade magazine! (I’m hoping Charlotte Church might make a reprise as host for ‘my’ episode….)

They saved the best until last, so head to pages 38 and 39 (but then take a look at the rest of the mag). Even if you don’t learn more about interdpendencies, you’ll have an edge over the missing words round, and everyone likes winning.

As always, comments appreciated either in the box below or direct to my inbox over here.

With thanks to colleagues at the EPS for publication

Grabbing the Grab Bag

Grabbing the Grab Bag

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I was in San Francisco earlier this year, and met with Rob Dudgeon (Director of Emergency Services at San Francisco Department for Emergency Management) who showed me around the Emergency Operations Centre, a facility which I expect has been very busy over the past couple of days, following the Boeing 777 crash on Saturday.

SFO crashWith the NTSB investigation is still in progress I don’t want to comment too much, other than sharing this interesting Forbes piece Why Did So Many Passengers Evacuate With Bags?

It’s something that I think about every time I board a plane. I know that the correct thing to do is to just get out as quickly as possible without being slowed down by rummaging for bags. However, I’m sure we all have experience of workplace fire drills in the cold or rain where just a split second to grab a coat or umbrella could have made us much more comfortable in an unpleasant situation.

Moreover, for an emergency planner, not taking the Grab Bag that I have packed ready for these sorts of occasions seems to be contrary to their purpose.

I’m not bothered about my valuables – I know that the contents of my hold luggage is insured and that I can get them replaced. I’m also not going to need the latest holiday read, but some of the items in my hand luggage could be genuinely useful in the event of an emergency.

  • I  know I’m going to need to call people and I know that my iPhone has a battery life of a few hours at best. So I need my charger, and probably a plug adapter
  • I’m going to need to provide officials with information – having my wallet and passport to hand will help with that
  • If I’m lucky enough to survive the impact, I don’t suppose I’ll manage to stay clean and dry when leaving the aircraft, so whilst it might seem a luxury, actually having a change of clothes is advantageous
  • Other people could conceivably want to grab a few items too – the diabetic on oral hypoglycaemics or insulin, the parents who need to think about baby food…

Plane crashes, thankfully, don’t happen frequently. I’d estimate that I’ve deplaned in excess of 200 times and none of these have been under emergency conditions. We know that under stress people revert to what they know, which could explain the number of passengers who picked up their belongings.

Naturally there is a dynamic risk assessment which must take place. If the fire is raging towards me then I can forego the above, but if I have a couple of moments to grab some essentials without causing a blockage for other passengers then I think that’s a useful activity.

With airlines, particularly budget ones, forcing passengers hands into taking all their luggage as hand luggage (to avoid additional charges) are they contributing to increased evacuation times? Encourage people to bring hand luggage, but keep it to the small essentials in a soft sided bag (so that it doesn’t puncture the escape slides). Don’t tell people to have a grab bag but not to grab it.

 

Image Source: pprune.org