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Category: Resilience

Rainy Day Funds

Rainy Day Funds

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Ceramic piggy bank

I read an article in The Independent last week about how there has been an increase in people unable to cope with unexpected expenditure.

Presumably this is as a result of the recession, and I’ve certainly noticed that everyday life seems to be that little bit more expensive than it used to be; most likely as a result of a combination of rising fuel prices, an increase in VAT and inflation rate changes. However, I’m no economist and therefore I’ll leave precise analysis of the reasons for this to people much better informed than me.

This does have impacts for resilience though. Flooding, arguably the UK’s most likely risk, rarely generates sensational media images associated with…say…helicopter crashes, but (I would suggest) is more damaging in terms of cost. In this context, Rainy Day Fund seems a particularly apt metaphor.

Right now, would you be able to afford, or does your insurance cover,

  • Replacing all of your downstairs carpets?
  • Hiring equipment to dry out plaster?
  • Repairing damage to your car caused by flood water and debris?

It’s something The Guardian picked up in 2011, but clearly many of us didn’t heed their warnings! How many of us have a piggy bank that we can raid in an emergency?

I have several contingency funds, but none of them particularly extensive, and I’m sure I’d have to call on other sources of assistance if I needed large sums of money quickly.

The organisations that I work with every day prepare detailed plans for many of the risks in the National Risk Register. Some of them have considered how to ‘deal’ with Vulnerable People, and often this involves information to “prepare a household or community emergency plan” but perhaps some more practical advice like “save a small amount of money each week” would be more advantageous?

Community resilience isn’t just about sandbags!

 

Image Source: Ocean/Corbis

Response – Vauxhall Helicopter Crash

Response – Vauxhall Helicopter Crash

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It’s been a busy 48 hours!

One of the earliest photos that I saw (Via @craiglet)

Shortly after 0800 on 16 January I was made aware of an aircraft which had crashed in central London. Fortunately I wasn’t on call, so didn’t have any immediate responsibilities, and therefore decided that I would remain at home to watch the unfolding news. This ensured that rather than getting on the tube, I remained contactable should I have been needed.

It quickly became apparent, in the age of social media and citizen journalists (which is a dated term, but I quite like it) that the aircraft in question was a helicopter, which had collided with a crane on a construction site.

Having established these very basic facts, and having received no calls at this point, I decided that I should probably go to work!

As I arrived, it became apparent that this tragic incident had really grasped the attention of the media, which, as ever was a sea of speculation with islands of truth. For me it’s not a problem, because I’ve been trained to treat media reports with a degree of caution until confirmed. It’s not surprising though, when many members of the public (with limited other information) believe everything they see in the news.

At the scene of the incident, and even away from the scene, response arrangements were initiated. However, the response to any emergency involves many more organisations than you typically might expect. Just as an example, each of the locations in the following sentence fall under the jurisdiction of a different organisation. The helicopter had hit a building site, debris had fallen into a variety of areas, which could have included a very busy stretch of railway, a considerable area of the road network in the area and various business premises and homes.

Providing support, consistent and accurate information and a communication route between the many and varied agencies is my primary role in a situation such as this. The initial phase of an incident, the first few hours generally, are (quite rightly) dominated by the emergency services. As time progresses through, colleagues from Local Authorities, Transport providers, Government and Utility companies all have a role to play in the response, recovery and communication to the public.

Whilst the investigation into this incident is ongoing it wouldn’t be right for me to comment any further than these basic details.

But before the snow arrives, and as the media reports move on to other issues, I felt it appropriate to acknowledge the very wide range of organisations who work together in these situations.

That, and it’s a perfect example of (what I call) the Emergency Planner’s Paradox. It is obviously a tragic incident and my sincere condolences are with the families of those who were sadly killed, but it is a real test of the planned arrangements, and I think they worked incredibly well in this instance.

Photo Source: @craiglet (I chose this one as it was the first that I saw yesterday)

Resilience at the movies

Resilience at the movies

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I didn’t realise it until I started this blog, but it appears that I have an affinity for the Disaster Movie.

I’ve developed this list of Disaster Movies and will be bringing you my thoughts on disaster films from a professional perspective (it’s based on a list I found here, and as you’ll see, it’s very much a work in progress!). I’m not setting myself any objectives here – I’ll just do this as and when, and based on which movies I can get my hands on. Check the ‘At the movies’ category for all relevant blog posts.

disaster movie picture

What am I hoping this will reveal? Well, there are already numerous studies of Disaster Movies from other perspectives (cinematography, feminism etc) – but as far as I’m aware, there hasn’t been a professional Emergency Management approach previously. So, my intention will be to compare what I know and have experience of, with what is portrayed on the big (or little) screen.

Obviously Hollywood likes to embellish fact with a good story; I understand that we’re not, unless explicitly stated, watching documentaries here. Nevertheless, for most of us (in the UK at least) our exposure to disasters is infrequent, so perhaps the disaster movie can serve as a learning experience – perhaps for the public, but perhaps also for the response community. Maybe once I’ve worked my way through the list I’ll have uncovered a lot more!

It’s going to take some time, and I expect I won’t be able to get through all of the films listed. I’ve already provided my analysis of 2012s The Impossible and I watched Source Code this weekend so will bring you that one soon too.

So there we have it, my intention for the first ‘running theme’ of this blog. If you have any suggestions on films you’d like reviewed – what was the professional message from Snakes on a Plane perhaps – then drop me a comment below or on twitter.

Oh, and the image is my rudimentary analysis of the categories of disaster film by year – I’m going to do a bit more work on this and come back with some more meaningful and insightful analysis, so for now, it’s just a nice picture!

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