Browsed by
Tag: COBRA

COBRA: Cyberwar S2E4 Walkthrough

COBRA: Cyberwar S2E4 Walkthrough

Reading Time: 5 minutes

 

How Sky described the episode: The team try to understand the latest discovery, while Francine’s criticism of Lord Singer is met with delight from the Labour leader. 

A brief recap on the wider context – in season one a geomagnetic storm knocked out power networks causing widespread chaos and (amongst other things) leading to a decision being taken to shoot a reporter. There’s mounting strength of feeling against the Prime Minister.

So far in season two, we’ve seen, well, A LOT – earthquakes off the Kent coast, an explosion of a sunken ship carrying munitions, coastal flooding, a helicopter crash carrying a notable Ukrainian, a cyberattack, radioactive blueberries as well as somebody poisoned with radiation and a dirty bomb.

If I’d have suggested that as an exercise scenario I’d have been laughed out of the room. (I have been for suggesting much less!). Developing an exercise is truly a dark art, and as emergency manager Luke Bird noted in 2014, you’re only ever a single inject away from accusations of straying into “the realms of fantasy.”

This episode starts with the Prime Minister gathering his most trusted (in the loosest sense) Ministers for a catch-up. It looks like the cyber attack and import of the radiation was a state-sponsored action, but there’s no suspect at the moment. Just based on the use of Polonium 210 would provide a fairly strong lead, given its use in the Litvinenko case.

A hacker (you can tell because they always sit in the dark and wear a hoodie) is editing a video about a politician “siding with the establishment rather than the will of people” feels close to the bone after the shenanigans in the House of Commons this week.

COBR is meeting now and discussing the rise of far-right extremism. I wasn’t really listening at this stage, because I was so distracted by what the screens in the background are showing.

They’re too far away to see the detail but I had a stab at what they could be showing…

screens in a meeting room

  • A This looks like it could be either some sort of topographic/digital elevation model or could be a chart of social media analysis?
  • B Duplicate of A (why bother?)
  • C CCTV footage from somewhere?
  • D This looks like it might be weather-related – a map on the right-hand side and then maybe a wind rose on the left? In which case, perhaps something similar to a CHEMET report for the potential dirty bomb?
  • E It’s not clear in the screengrab, but later in the same scene, this looks to be the online video from the cyber hackers Firestorm.
  • F Also looks to be footage from Firestorm. I’m not sure why either of these would need to be on repeat in COBR.
  • G I have no idea?! Is this an Audacity screen? Or just lots of mini DOS windows? Either way, I can’t figure out what it could helpfully be showing.
  • H Duplicate of D (again, why duplicate information that is already displayed?)

Some of that information is useful, but this is how I’d use the COBR screens:

  • 1 TV News channel (domestic channel) – to see what the public is seeing. Personally, I’d go with Sky News.
  • 2 TV News channel (foreign channel) – to see a snapshot of how it is being reported overseas.
  • 3 With the impact to cyber networks – some sort of analysis of their robustness – perhaps a summary of main SCADA system uptime
  • 4 The CHEMET modelling is a fairly good idea, that can stay.
  • 5 Maybe use this one for information on response capacity – what strategic resources are available/could be deployed?
  • 6 I’d keep this one free for video conferencing (as it doesn’t look like they have a screen for that) especially for dialling in the devolved administrations, or perhaps relevant Strategic Commanders from affected areas or wider experts (SAGE?).
  • 7  I’d use this to display the CRIP, the document produced as a single source of briefing information.

Lord Singer, the judge who has gotten himself into some hot water, is offered police protection given stated threats against him from fascists. He’s not keen and would prefer to jet off to Cyprus. There are also veiled threats to the Home Secretary, Prime Minister and his wife.

Oh dear, the irradiated body is a US citizen, and a scientist involved in classified research. That’s probably not great for diplomatic relations and probably means that we’re going to hear more from the truly awful Foreign Secretary (played brilliantly by David Haig).

A radicalised young man is seen readying some weapons. The last few episodes of COBRA season two were initially pulled from broadcast in the wake of the “no duff” murder of David Amess. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where this part of the episode is heading. Yep.

The murder is also generating conspiracy theories and counter conspiracies; which feels pretty accurate. The Prime Minister has given the security services a clear direction to ‘deal with’ a problematic journalist. So we can also guess how that’s going to play out too.

The journalist in question is seen in a cafe speaking with an opposition politician. There is a lingering shot on a coffee cup with a mysterious logo on it. Has he also been poisoned? There are no immediate signs, but maybe something slower acting? More Polonium?

Fraser, the Head of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat, is at a warehouse where the forensic investigation of the exploded ship is taking place. The voyage data recorder (VDR) is a bit like a black box from a plane and has been recovered. The data shows something unusual, a low frequency but high decibel noise 3.7 seconds before the explosion.

Back to Manchester where our journalist has received some encrypted files from an anonymous source, which seem to implicate the American Government in something, which looks like it could be related to the ship explosion as it briefly mentions sub-aquatic research. The computer the journalist is using has been hacked, as has the rest of his office. Spooks are waiting outside however before they can get to him he is bundled into a black Range Rover by unknown men.

Separately, armed officers are assembling to raid the home of the suspected cyber hacker.

We’ve got discordant strings. Tension is mounting!

And…they’ve raided the home of an old frail lady. Great! Luckily upstairs the hacker is found. So that’s one of the problems resolved.

Some shocking radio protocol from the Counter Terrorism Specialist Firearms Officers though.

We see the journalist beaten and shot, and then in the culmination of the episode Francine, the opposition politician causing waves, sees that the offices of the journalist have been firebombed. She’s allowed to get quite close to the building and there’s no evidence of safety cordons being in place.

That’s it for this week. Two more episodes to go!!

 

COBRA: Cyberwar S2E3 Walkthrough

COBRA: Cyberwar S2E3 Walkthrough

Reading Time: 4 minutes

 

Can you believe a whole week has passed and we’re back for another exciting instalment of Sky’s ’emergency management’ show COBRA!

Here’s the blub for the episode: COBRA is assembled when fresh disaster strikes, as a breach in Dover suggests an insidious threat. The PM’s strategy is tested. 

The episode opens back in Kent, this time at the Port of Dover. Border Force security guards are discussing a vehicle which they expect to test positive for radiation because it’s carrying declared radioactive cargo. When it doesn’t it alerts them that the radiation scanning system is non-operational.

We cut to Whitehall where an emergency briefing has been convened and GCHQ representatives announce that the Cyclamen scanners are offline, “the only defence to protect against terrorists driving a dirty bomb into the country”. This could, or could not be connected to the other instances of cyber hacking that the team have responded to in the previous episodes.

Programme Cyclamen is a collaboration since 2003 between the Border Force and the Home Office to detect the transport of illicit radioactive or nuclear material moving through British ports of entry. It covers air, rail and seaports, and scans vehicles, cargo and passengers. You may have seen some of these scanners depending on how much attention you pay when travelling.

The decision is taken that all port operations at Dover, the only port affected, should cease. This is probably a very wise decision. It’s not clear how long this has been an issue, but taking this action ensures that from that point any radioactive substances being brought into the country are contained to a small geographic area. However, as the team discuss, the implications of closing a port are significant, with impacts to supply chains being the primary issue.

Fraser, who is the Head of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat, remarks that ‘contingencies’ for the continued supply of fresh produce have already been put in place. There’s no further detail given on this, and I suspect that it’s too soon into the incident for that to be anything more meaningful than the port operators implementing their surge capacity plans, to manage the backlog of arriving freight ships.

The Prime Minister is concerned about the public reaction to this news, and in the shadow of the recent real-life issues experienced with petrol and diesel, makes a very astute observation that even if there is no supply issue, there could be panic buying, going as far as to say “I want that port open again before there are riots in Tesco”.

Sidebar: colleague Chris Cocking wrote a brilliant blog post in 2020 which covered the ‘panic buying’ behaviour in the first COVID lockdown which I recommend reading.

In five hours 1,027 vehicles passed through the port without an effective scan. That’s actually pretty good quality information, it’s timely and likely to be accurate, so although it’s a lot of vehicles that need to be located, at least they have some idea of the scale of the problem.

A CCS official (the same one who was last seen floating presumed dead in the North Sea) has already been getting to grips with the data and has issued information to regional police services. It seems unlikely that this would be a CCS task, but maybe this is what the National Situation Centre will be getting up to behind their new curtains. Either way, one vehicle originating in Ukraine has been identified as being a particular risk and quicker than you can say CBRN, there is a fully equipped team (complete with armoured vehicles) intercepting the truck.

Inside are radioactive blueberries! This sounds a bit far fetched, but this is likely based on a real incident in 2016 where berries grown near Chernobyl were exported. The COBRA attendees are concerned that this could affect public confidence both about the Government’s handling of the situation as well as on healthy eating.

In response to this communications concern, a suggestion of ‘slapping a D Notice‘ on the media is suggested only to be immediately shot down.

We’re a good while into this week’s episode before they bring in the political drama, which is refreshing because the last episode was a bit heavy on that.

Our friendly analyst has discovered a problem with one of the missing trucks. Nothing more at the moment, but I suspect this isn’t the last we’ve heard about it.

An online activist is beginning to post information about the ‘nuclear berries’ which causes the Government to get twitchy, but the Prime Minister is probably right to wait for confirmation of all testing rather than speculate. In the absence of Government communications, there are instances of empty supermarket shelves, an increase in people drinking detergent and ‘mobs’ gathering and causing disruption at other ports.

The missing truck hasn’t been identified beneath Waterloo Station and ‘it doesn’t look good’. A Military CBRN team go in to investigate and identify an ‘off the scale’ level of radiation emanating from the truck. Based on this the advice to the PM, which is accepted is to seal off Central London.

My own view is that I think that is a bit of an overreaction based on what they know at this stage. If they had information also suggesting the presence of explosives then I think some limited safety cordon would be appropriate, as well as stopping train movements in and out of the station. My other issue is that so much of this would be operational information that the COBR team wouldn’t have in real-time. In reality, this response would be led by the Military and Police, briefing upwards to COBR via their ministers, but that takes time.

On further investigation, it turns out that the high levels of radiation are coming from a dead body inside the otherwise empty truck. Who is it? How did it get there? Who is responsible? These are all questions the PM has just at the episode ends, with more to follow in future weeks.

I’m not sure if Episode 4 is now available again. After the murder of an MP recently, Sky decided to pull some episodes of the series from broadcast out of respect (which perhaps is an indication of what is still to come). Stay tuned!

COBRA: Cyberwar S2E2 Walkthrough

COBRA: Cyberwar S2E2 Walkthrough

Reading Time: 3 minutes

 

How Sky described the episode: As the cyberattack jams communications, the Prime Minister convenes an emergency COBRA meeting following the devastation in Kent.

It’s a weird description because there seemed to be at least two COBR meetings in the first episode. But imagine. A Prime Minister that is quick to convene COBR.

Recently the UK Government published Coronavirus: lessons learned to date. This report notes that “during the pandemic, COBR was not functioning as effectively as it should have been” and heard evidence from Dominic Cummings that the meetings were “not conducive”. Something else that’s not that especially conducive is when the Prime Minister doesn’t turn up for five meetings.

The national crisis response machinery cannot be dependant on one individual and incident response shouldn’t hinge on national response arrangements. However, those arrangements are a vital part of demonstrating leadership, so seeing Robert Carlysle’s get an early grip is encouraging.

The COBR meeting starts with a situation update. That’s a helpful way to start this kind of meeting, to ensure everyone is operating from the same information. This is known, as the Commonly Recognised Information Picture or the ‘CRIP’. Although, I must tell you that, in my experience, the Cabinet Office are very protective over that terminology – just take a look at what their own Emergency Planning College website has to say.

What strikes me as a bit odd is that in the show the COBR facility has some really lovely display screens, which are just used to show the government crest, rather than anything useful.

We get a bit more about the cyberattack, that the hackers have found a zero-day vulnerability. This essentially means hackers take advantage of software using a flaw that is not known to developers, so they have no prior knowledge of the risk or available patches. This means it can take a bit longer to resolve.

Some cracks are beginning to show in the Cabinet team. Like in Season 1, I do like that they are showing these characters as complex people with their own baggage.

The action switches over to Kent, and to the Strategic ‘Command’ Centre. This is shown as being in a hangar in an airfield. Whilst it’s not impossible that would happen, but it is very, very unlikely. Oh, and ‘command’ in this sense is incorrect. The proper terminology is a Strategic Coordination Centre. This reflects that whilst organisations may have ‘primacy’ for different functions, there is no one organisation with ultimate ‘command’.

Typically TV dramas choose locations that have little bearing to reality, so it’s impressive attention to detail to see an exterior of Victoria Street just before they cut to a scene set at the Labour Party HQ.

Incidentally, there are a lot of side-eyes being thrown in this episode. It’s building up to something. I can sense it.

There are so many thanks going wrong at the moment it’s hard to keep up. That’s also a factor in real-life emergencies. They are incredibly dynamic and ascertaining a good overview of what has happened can take some time.

The disruption to communications is a key concern. We’ve had a bit of information about phones and emails, but there hasn’t been much said about data. There are some contingencies available, such as RAYNET, although these fallback systems often don’t have the capability of other systems have and generally don’t have high levels of familiarity. So it’s not a perfect solution.

There is a ‘missing people’ board in the SCC. That also seems a bit misplaced and would be more likely to be seen as spontaneous posters and flyers attached to relevant local buildings, rather than in the ‘command’ room.

And finally, the line of the episode, massively understates just how complex and time consuming the period after the emergency response can be. I doubt we’re out of the woods just yet.

There was a lot of plot happening in this episode, and not much emergency management to pick out. Hopefully, we’ll have a bit more to say after episode 3.

COBRA: Cyberwar S2E1 Walkthrough

COBRA: Cyberwar S2E1 Walkthrough

Reading Time: 6 minutes

 

It’s with great excitement (and a little surprise) that Sky’s COBRA returned to screens this week. By popular demand, my episode-by-episode reviews have also returned, bringing this emergency manager’s take on how the profession is depicted and some thoughts on how the response to an emergency might vary in real life.

The series centres around COBRA, the name given to the UK Government’s crisis response machinery, and its response to a national emergency.

Season One episode reviews are over here if you want to start with those.

How Sky described the episode: New and Exclusive. The high stakes Sky Original returns as COBRA faces volatility in Kent. An unseen enemy strikes from the shadows. 

The episode starts with a ‘previously on COBRA’ montage. It’s not important what the crisis was in S1, this is all about setting up the context – they are making it clear that the backstory is going to be relevant in S2. Who likes who, what the power dynamics of the Cabinet are, who’s got what skeletons to be dramatically released. I’m hooked!

We join Fraser, the Head of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat, or CCS, (IRL this is a post currently filled by Roger Hargreaves, who recently spoke at The Emergency Planning Society Conference) binoculars in hand asking for a sitrep (translation: Situation Report) from his colleague on a small boat.

A town is being ordered to evacuate by a disembodied voice, so let us explore evacuation a bit further…

The military are on hand, which tells us that this is something that has been ongoing for a little while because Military Aid to Civil Authorities (or MACA) requires Ministerial authorisation as well as a ‘time to move’ period for the military resources.

Evacuation is all about moving people from a place of relative danger to a place of relative safety. It’s fairly simple in high-level terms, but a range of complex issues and considerations means that it’s not perhaps as simple as it might seem. It’s not always required, and sometimes staying put might be the better option, this is known as shelter. Conveniently, there is national guidance setting out the approach to both Evacuation and Shelter.

Evacuation DiagramIn the episode, we see a discussion about evacuation being ‘almost complete’, save for the elderly people who are reluctant to leave their homes. This is fairly accurate (if a bit judgy), as there could be many reasons that people may be reluctant to leave their homes. People will generally be less inclined to leave if they haven’t been given decent information to enable them to make informed decisions. There are also very limited powers to compel people to evacuate, as picked up on Twitter.

Our friend from Civil Contingencies Secretariat has joined the Royal Navy in investigating the hull of a sunken ship. Warning lights flash and some urgent sounding beeping leads to the navy aborting the mission and there appears to be an explosion.

This scenario seems to be directly influenced by the SS Richard Montgomery, an American WW2 cargo ship that sank in August 1944 off the coast of Kent, carrying 1,400 tonnes of high explosives. There is a risk of detonation at the mouth of the Thames Esturary and a Government report from 1970 showed a blast would produce a column of water and mud 1,000ft wide and reaching 10,000ft into the air, which would generate a 16ft ‘tidal wave’ travelling upstream in the Thames. For some reassurance, surveys in 2003, 2008 and 2013 seem to indicate no sign of increased risk. Sadly not the case in the episode.

Back in Whitehall we see that a new Home Secretary has been appointed (no doubt because his predecessor authorised the shooting of a journalist) and quickly rush into a COBR meeting (see this blog on COBR vs COBRA). Weirdly, despite a significant national emergency last year, there seems to have been no investment in the facilities. In reality, Downing Street recently spent £2.6m on a Comms Facility which they then decided not to use.

Like last season, it’s great that reference is being made to historical incidents. Very few emergencies are ‘unprecedented’ despite what the public messaging at the time might suggest. I don’t know much about the 1917 Nova Scotia explosion (yet, hello reading list!) but suspect the reference to ‘an explosion in Beirut’ is the ammonium nitrate explosion which tragically killed 218 people, caused 7,000 injuries and $15 billion of property damage, and left around 300,000 people homeless.

Beirut 2020 explosion animation

It seems that the explosion in the episode was caused by an earthquake rather than a detonation of the cargo on the ship, but the cargo may have been destabilised making the evacuation of the town even more pressing.

A Ukrainian man is dressed all in black. It’s not the most subtle characterisation, suggestive that he’s up to no good. A drone is unloaded from a suspicious-looking Peli case (which, incidentally, is a staple piece of emergency management equipment). A school class are distracted by a helicopter taking off from their grounds, and shortly afterwards it’s shot down by the armed drone, crashing back into the school.

Back in COBR, they already have a photograph of the teacher who was killed in the crash. Timescales are all over the place – Fraser has casually travelled between meetings in London and Kent twice, newspapers are shown breaking news without consideration for the time needed to print and distribute…but I can let it slide because of maintaining dramatic pace. In reality, though, things like casualty numbers would take some time, potentially hours, to confirm.

There is some pretty dense conversation covering intelligence assessments about the Ukrainians who carried out the attack and the diplomatic response options. It’s no surprise that the same people wrote Spooks, it feels a little like they are reverting to what they know.

Back in the coastal town, a Navy officer asks the lady from Civil Continegcnies Secratraiat “What is the point in you?” which is supremely clunky scriptwriting, but a legitimate question. CCS and other Government departments would, in reality, be very unlikely to be on the boat doing the defusing of bombs! Her response, is that she’s there representing Number 10.

COBRA screen grab

We’ve got the warning lights and sirens again…and suddenly a huge explosion, far bigger than the first one. Our new CCS friend lasted 49 minutes, perhaps a comment on high staff turnover in the Cabinet Office?

On the land, they’re still loading busses to evacuate people (despite saying evacuation was almost complete earlier) which feels a bit late in the day. The wave from the explosion makes landfall very quickly, causing damage and destruction. My other observation is that the water is remarkably clear. Helpful for the telly, but in reality, the water would contain all sorts of unmentionables and hazards, which can make the response and recovery more dangerous and time-consuming. This will be a big clean up job for someone.

The Prime Minister (still played by Robert Carlyle) is concerned about Fraser and his whole team, which is a nice show of empathy, but also the rationale for why you don’t put your whole team in the same place at the same time. There are reported cyber-attacks and disruption to Government communications systems including the ‘Emergency Services Comms Network’ and direct hacking of the screens in COBR showing the message ‘Ruin Britania’.

And roll credits, that’s a wrap on episode one.

Overall – a different vibe to season 1, more security-focused plot lines and because we already know the characters they’re deeper into the drama already. Tune in next week for the second episode instalment!

COBRA: Episodes 5 and 6

COBRA: Episodes 5 and 6

Reading Time: 4 minutes

 

Sky pulled a bit of a fast one here, combining episodes 5 and 6 into a double bill. Although this was not the plan, I’ll also blog about them in a double bill. One of the key attributes of an emergency manager, you see, is the ability to roll with the punches!

How Sky pitched these episodes:

  • As the nation slides into anarchy, Sutherland considers extreme measures to take control.
  • Sutherland is forced to fight for his political career. Meanwhile, riots rock the nation. 

 

The episode starts with a briefing in COBRA, always a handy narrative device to bring people up to speed if they’ve forgotten where we left off. In real life, the Cabinet Office support COBR meetings through the production of a commonly recognised information picture, which is widely referred to as “The CRIP”.  This process saves going around the table to get an update from each person as it’s already been collated.

The long and short of it is that the public is becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress being seen to restore power to Northumberland, resulting in blockades around London to force the hand of the Government.

One theme that has come through strongly for the entire series is the ‘us v them’ between the ordinary members of the public and the privileged government. There doesn’t seem to have been any strength of feeling towards anyone other than the politicians, which I think would have been more realistic. “How has this been allowed to happen?” is a common question following an emergency. However, rarely is the answer simple and it’s usual that there are multiple intersecting criteria. Politics may be one of those but it’s not directly the sole cause.

Remember that sub-plot about the drug-pushing daughter of the Prime Minister? Well, things appear to have gone badly for all concerned, but…what I did find interesting is that the Press Office keeps a diary which is being used to establish the facts. In many ways, that’s not too different from keeping a record of decisions during an emergency. In the UK this record is referred to as a log. This is then used as a verb, logging, to describe the process of capturing information in a chronological record.

Oh gosh. The leader of the protest group has been hit by a car in a scene much like this…

With a sniff of conspiracy theory about the hit and run, negotiations with the lorry drivers supporting the blockades have broken down and reports of looting (which I’ve mentioned before is mostly a disaster myth) and rioting ( a term which they Government were very careful to avoid using in 2011, anecdotally because this would have given rise to different compensation arrangements under the Riot Damages Act of 1886!).

Sidenote: It’s always exciting watching TV shows set in London and trying to spot locations. The secret meeting place for the Russians is Marsham Court on Marsham Street. I walk past it regularly but will be more on the lookout now!

The decision has been made to break the blockade using force, and the PM has authorised the military use of firearms against civilians.

Ah yes, and they’ve shot a journalist. Not good optics to be honest. That’s probably not going to look great on his Wikipedia page.

Ok, who cares, let’s move straight on to the final episode and get this thing done.

The first 20 minutes is all politics and backstabbing and double-crossing and nepotism. Once you’re past that it’s straight into the delivery of a massive electrical transformer to Northumberland.

They’ve run into a slight issue, that it’s heavier than the bridge they need to cross will allow. The driver of the truck has refused, but helpfully there’s someone on hand from the Cabinet Office to step in as a hero. Cue tense background music, fast cuts to cracks appearing in the road, tight shots of anxious faces.

Panic over, he’s made it across! The only thing left to do now is to connect the transformer into the system, something which sounds simple, so that probably means it’s incredibly specialist.

More politics. Honestly, the tone of this series has been so inconsistent. Is it an emergency management procedural? Is it the West Wing or House of Cards? Is it an apocalyptic drama? It seems to depend from story arc to story arc.

Well what do you know, they got the lights back on, patted each other on the back and went on their merry ways.

A disappointing end to the series.

Overall Thoughts

Power has been restored. All’s well that ends well. The reality though, is that ‘recovery’ would take many months, likely years.

Increasingly I’m of the opinion that recovery doesn’t really exist. Actually, maybe it shouldn’t exist. Lessons should always be learned, processes improved, arrangements reviewed. The obsession with recovery devalues the process of learning, but that feels like a post for another time.

I have a few concluding thoughts on COBRA:

  • Good start, weak middle, bonkers end. What started as a bit of dramatic licence quickly fell away to absurd management.
  • It was great to see a series about this kind of emergency management stuff on telly. I’m always going to be interested in watching the portrayal of my industry. With that though, comes the frustration that doctors and nurses and firefighters and police must experience on a much more regular basis.
  • I’ve essentially spent the past 5 Fridays screaming “it doesn’t happen like that” at a box in my living room.
  • I’ve also enjoyed having something regular to blog about, even if the actual content of the blogs got harder to find episode on episode.

And finally, just in case you were in any doubt about the Civil Contingencies Act, the characters themselves highlighted…

COBRA: Episode 4

COBRA: Episode 4

Reading Time: 3 minutes

 

How Sky pitched this episode: Sutherland’s knowledge about his daughter’s part in her friend’s death is questioned. Meanwhile, a new threat rears its head. 

I’d avoided mentioning the sub-plot about the Prime Minister’s daughter until now because I didn’t think it was going to be relevant. It looks like it’s going to be a major part of this episode so we’ll just have to roll with it. To bring us all up to speed – the daughter of the Prime Minister supplied drugs to a girl who subsequently died, Number 10 lied about the supply.

At the same time, the national blackout continues.

So far we have learnt that the Police Chief Constable can do every job that exists, simultaneously. Today he’s in charge of fuel logistics. No doubt by the end of the episode he’ll personally be drilling for fuel oil in the North Sea.

A fuel tanker hijacking and a ‘vigilante group’. That’s the most exciting opener since episode 1!

The suggestion for the Army to take over fuel supply distribution is real, taken from the Government’s guidance on responding to energy emergencies:

As part of its contingency planning, the government works with the downstream oil industry, including haulage companies, to maintain a capability within the Armed Forces to make fuel deliveries in the event of a serious disruption to normal deliveries.

I know it’s a drama, but I found it strange that it was the Home Office rather than the Defence representatives (or Business Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Government Department with lead responsibility (out of date list of other responsibilities available here) for energy emergency preparedness) suggesting the military as an option.

MI5 apparently have a maxim that society is three meals away from anarchy. I’m not sure how evidenced that is, but it’s fair to assume that with the consequences of the powercuts now in their third or fourth week it’s unsurprising people are now starting to take action into their own hands.

You may remember from Episode 1, there was some debate about whether a hospital was the best place to site a coordination centre. We don’t know the full story, but that decision is now coming back to bite, with the ‘vigilante’ crew storming the facility.

Sidenote: It’s reminding me of those times that a new group of survivors in The Walking Dead try their might against Rick Grimes’ group.

“You need a good night’s kip, you’re a bit tense” finally, someone is looking out for the welfare of the Gold Commander, although the last place you’d expect that to come from is the leader of the group attempting to take control!

Something I don’t think I’ve thought about before, whether a Strategic Coordination Centre (the place a multi-agency response is managed from) needs a panic-button?

The Chief of Staff’s husband has found out about multiple-night stand man. Oh dear. I smell another sub-plot.

I do like the attempt to show that these people are people. They have their own complicated lives and baggage, context which informs the decisions they make and how the respond to stress. However, it’s inconsistently done and feels a bit forced at times; maybe a slightly longer series would have given more time for the characters to breathe.

The vigilante group have now been joined by trade union members of the haulage industry, preventing supplies being delivered to the affected area and putting pressure on the PM to resign. Seems counter-intuitive to me, but perhaps an interesting insight into the double-think involved with this type of negotiation?

Interesting that in this episode it’s fictional Channel 6 News being shown in COBR not Sky News like in the first episodes.

In response to the protesters, the Prime Minister described the situation as a “natural event”. That probably won’t be significant to many people, but to an emergency manager avoiding the term ‘natural disaster‘ is very welcome nuance.

The episode ends with a cliffhanger (of sorts). The leader of the ‘vigilante’ group has issued a call to action to members of the public to rise up and fight the London elite. Tune in next week to find out how that goes!

 

** for more info about this blog-along and previous episodes check out the introductory post

COBRA: Episode 3

COBRA: Episode 3

Reading Time: 4 minutes

 

How Sky pitched this episode: Sutherland, Anna and Fraser head to one of the worst affected areas. But whilst the PM is away, Archie causes problems. 

The story so far:

  • A geomagnetic storm has wiped out electricity systems across wide areas of the country
  • Resource limitations and secondary consequences are compounding the issue
  • Where we left Episode 2, inmates from a secure unit had attacked students at a university
  • Fortunately COBR and a single police officer are here to save the day…

Everyone ready?

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that the Cheif Constable seems to be getting a lot of the jobs, now he’s interviewing a survivor of the attack at the university.

The Prime Minister is keen to get himself up to Northumberland to show his support. Emergency plans often don’t reflect this, yet it’s almost a given. It’s surprising just how much effort it takes to organise this kind of ‘VIP’ visit to avoid clangers like the minister getting stuck on the wrong side of a collapsed bridge or whatever.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record…a Local Resilience Forum is not an emergency response body

Sidenote: a significantly different take VIP visits was explored in the Aberfan episode of The Crown.

Anyway, we learn that the power has been off to some areas for around a week and travel restrictions are in place for the North East of England which has been designated a Red Zone.

Red or Hot zones are used in scenarios such as chemical incidents; quite what it means in this context is unclear at the moment.

In the event of a widespread power outage, National Grid has an obligation to be able to re-energise the electricity system. This is known as a Black Start event. The process of restoring electricity supply is complex and, as the chart below shows, it’s likely that power would be restored in a patchwork way rather to everyone at once. The Press Officer sort of mentions this, when he talks about continued ‘brown-outs’.

I find it hard to picture a situation where people in the UK are required to ‘walk miles for food and shelter’, but the point about conserving fuel for priority use seems reasonable, although I think this is a fairly poetic use of the National Emergency Plan for Fuel.

Remember the ‘Red Zone’ from a moment ago? Well, it turns out that it’s just because they’ve circled the affected areas in red (and blue and yellow) on their internal papers.

At the hospital (apparently, the only hospital affected), we see 40 tents on the parking area and hear reports of 2000 people seeking refuge there. That doesn’t feel very realistic. Yes, those people without power would need to go somewhere, but I think it would be sensible to locate that kind of facility further away to avoid potential issues (like the one we see later in this episode where an angry mob assembles).

My own view is that our preparedness in the UK is poor for setting up this kind of camp largely because of an ‘it won’t happen here’ attitude.

There’s a grim scene where a man is attacked by people who mistake him for a convicted criminal. Once again, it’s up to our friend the Cheif Constable to break up the fight (why didn’t they just turn off the ignition of the motorbike?).

There are a handful of persistent myths, one of which is that ‘disasters bring out the worst in people’. In fact, the opposite is usually true; people are usual prosocial rather than antisocial.

That sense of stoicism and togetherness that people exhibit in adversity can often be referred to as Blitz Spirit, an example of which is below.

However, this is a clunky application of a complex social phenomenon. Ultimately though, The Blitz didn’t solve existing social problems. So COBRAs depiction of racially targetted attacks does, sadly, feel realistic.

“This is a PR disaster?” Is it the job of fictional Press Officers to state the obvious? How is this helping the situation?

After seeing the man who has been injured, the PM takes it upon himself to address the baying crowd. He makes a quip about ‘people throwing things needing to have better aim’. In my experience of these types of public meetings, this type of remark is very likely to have inflamed the situation to the point of disorder.

He rounds off with “I promise you, we will turn the lights on again”. For series two (if it’s recommissioned) they need to engage American scriptwriters for these state address moments, they’re better at the poignant politician than we are.

I found this episode much harder to blog about. It was more about establishing the political tension between the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary and fleshing out a couple of the Civil Servant staff, less about the response aspects. I hope that’s not the general direction of the rest of the series.

** for more info about this blog-along and previous episodes check out the introductory post

COBRA: Episode 2

COBRA: Episode 2

Reading Time: 7 minutes

 

How Sky pitched this episode: Sutherland and the Team work around the clock as the blackout throws the nation into crisis. 

TL;DR recap of Episode 1: a geomagnetic storm threatens to wipe out technology (there’s a great episode of BBC’s In Our Time looking at the science of space weather). The last episode ended with the power starting to go off in London…

Is everybody ready for episode 2? Let’s do this!

POP QUIZ – What is wrong with this opening scene?

No! A Local Resilience Forum does not respond to emergencies. It’s simple.

Do you remember the acronym I mentioned in the first blog, METHANE? It’s a memory device to help emergency services give clear structured information about a dynamic situation back to their control rooms. That enables them to mobilise additional resources and responses.

It stands for:

  • Major Incident – declared?
  • Exact Location
  • Type of Incident
  • Hazards
  • Access and egress (translation: egress is the opposite of access)
  • Number of casualties
  • Emergency responders required

Here’s a quick video on how it’s supposed to work:

As you can see, it’s not really designed for assessing national-scale incidents, but just for fun, let’s see how it works for the information we’re bombarded at the start of this episode and what we know so far…

  • M – Yes, a Major Incident was declared in relation to the plane crash and we know that the Prime Minister has ‘activated’ COBR, the cross-Whitehall emergency coordination structure
  • E – 4 locations are mentioned as being particularly badly affected by the power cuts, north Wales, east Scotland, Cornwall and Northumberland. We also told that major cities including London are affected (but later they state major conurbations are less affected). And of course, we’ve got that plane crash in the north-east.
  • T – I find this bit tricky. It’s a geomagnetic storm, but at this stage I think there would still be a fair amount of confusion. How different incident types are labelled depends on how they are reported. We’ve heard about a vehicle collision, but would that immediately be connected with the space weather, I doubt it.
  • H – We don’t have much to go on here, but the loss of power and, consequently, interruption to telecommunications is a definite factor in shaping the subsequent response.
  • A – No specific information, but one of the news reports mentioned the government ‘limiting freedom of movement’ (we’ll come back to this I expect!)
  • N – So far, we’re only aware of 2 people who have been killed.
  • E – I’ve never really, properly understood this line of the acronym. Let’s ignore it for now.

What d’ya know, that actually worked out better than I was expecting it to! Right, so we’re all now have a common operating picture, let’s proceed.

The COBR team seem to have access to some specific data showing the affected areas. At 3 hours into the crisis, I’d say that’s probably optimistic. Information typically starts off quite general and gets refined as details emerge.

Oh dear. 4 badly hit areas. 3 spare transformers. Resource problems. Yes, that’s fairly typical. Tough decisions have to be made with limited information to determine the best use of assets. (You could think of this as identifying the ‘least worst’ option – clunky language, but essentially the idea that in some cases there are negative outcomes whatever the option. Also known as wicked problems).

Sidenote: Did you catch the mention of Puerto Rico? I suspect that’s a reference to the much-delayed support from the United States following Hurricane Maria.

Our nice Police friend is concerned about the ability of the hospital to keep running to care for the injured place passengers. Fortunately, the nice people in the Cabinet Office Briefing Room have arranged for a helicopter to bring them some blood and medical supplies.

In reality, if there was a problem, the line of communication would be between the NHS and Department for Health and Social Care. If appropriate (and after they had figured out their policy position and own media lines) they would relay that to COBR.

Overlooking that for a moment, we’re going to take a deeper look at the blood issue 💉 (although nobody has actually mentioned there are shortages).

The hospital is required to maintain it’s own stocks of blood (and blood products) and their own contingency plan. It’s likely there would be mutual aid (i.e. sharing) arrangements with other local hospitals and they would have support from NHS Blood and Transplant. It’s therefore unlikely that this would be the first issue that they would need national support with.

Is an Emergency Department waiting area is the best place for the police to be on the phone to COBR? I think not! Also, given the reported issues with mobile masts, how are these telephones working?

Anyway, let’s not get distracted; we shall press on…

Tired People make bad decisions” Yes. This. Getting people to rest, or sometimes even to take time to eat, during a response can be a significant challenge.

The Chief Constable has turned up at an immigration removal centre where staffing resources are 30% down.


A slight detour…

Is it weird that a plane crash and an immigration centre were the subjects of a recent episode of Silent Witness?

Like METHANE, Step123+ is a device used by the Ambulance service to consider their response to potentially hazardous substance incidents. It basically says

  • if there is one casualty then use normal precautions,
  • if there are two casualties then there could be something going on, use caution
  • if there are three or more then something is amiss

I find myself using Step123+ in everyday life. Like…when two TV shows show both use a plane crash and immigration centre as a plot point….my mind instantly thinks, “is that the beginnings of a pattern?”

Anyway, back to the main event…


Back to Whitehall and the COBR folks are discussing where to send 3 generators. There was a (well researched) conversation about getting supplies from Germany and recognition that as other countries are having similar issues international supply may be limited.

How would you decide who should get the generators?

  • Do you send it to the area where it will benefit the most people?
  • The areas that it’ll be quickest and easiest to transport to?
  • Would you, as Prime Minister, also be thinking about ‘if we don’t support a devolved administration, what are the implications in the longer-term’?

The Chief of Staff has gone into a hotel. Everyone is using a real candle. There’s not a single torch. Won’t somebody think of the fire risk?! The Concierge mentions that electronic door systems are not working. Now, unless this is a super fancy hotel using the latest systems, most hotel door locks are battery operated so this is unlikely to be an issue*.

I hope all the kids have got enough juice left in their phones to take insta-worthy pictures of the Aurora!

Sky News has clearly got a generator, they’re still broadcasting. But with national blackouts and likely loss of transmission, it’s not clear how many people would be watching.

Sidenote: The writers have done a phenomenal job of writing the Home Secretary to be the most awful person in politics. I suppose they have lots of source material. 🙊

Meanwhile, over at Royal Northumberland Hospital…we’ve got a crowd control issue (as people try to charge their phones using the hospitals emergency generator power) and escalating trouble at the removal centre. A colleague on twitter pointed out this actually happened in Lancaster in 2015.

You know that fire risk I mentioned earlier…well the hotel is now on fire. Without a functioning alarm system, it seems to be down to the Chief of Staff and her one night stand to alert the occupants.

I’d estimate that the fire puts around 80+ people in need of temporary accommodation. In the first instance, this would be the hotel’s responsibility, but I imagine their processes for finding available rooms is compromised, so the responsibility for emergency accommodation would fall to the local authority, compounding the issues the council will already be dealing with.

My concern has shifted to the personal safety of the Police Chief checking on the escape from the deportation centre in his uniform. I’d imagine high levels of anger and fear from the people at the centre towards the Police (although I think it’s actually UKBA responsible for the centres?). In any case, my advice to him would be to remove/cover his uniform.

Yes, as suspected, the escaping people weren’t happy. Thankfully (as he’s the only policeman outside of London) he managed to get away to continue doing other people’s jobs.

It continues to go from bad to worse in Northumbria, as high-security escapees have attacked students at the university. Quite what the motive for that would be is a bit unclear, but we’ll have to wait until episode 3 to find out!

 

 

* it turns out my initial view here might not be right, one to research further!

** for more info about this blog-along check out my introductory post or head straight to Episode 3

 


Post Script: Emergency Planners unite! It’s not just us that feel the COBR/COBRA debate. I present some evidence:

 

 

COBRA: Episode 1

COBRA: Episode 1

Reading Time: 9 minutes

 

How Sky pitched the episode: Robert Carlyle stars as the UK Prime Minister, forced to scramble an emergency committee when a huge crisis strikes. 

Ooof.

Let’s just take a minute to read that again, shall we? A whole profession (in 2014 I estimated there are at least 7000 Emergency Planners in the UK) works around the clock to ensure that emergency committees are prepared, trained and rehearsed so that should a crisis occurs people are not ‘forced to scramble‘!

Right, deep breath…*presses play*

MAYDAY!! The series opens on a plane in trouble, some tense conversations with air traffic control and then…a flashback.

The Prime Minister is a smoker?! Bad optics scene reminiscent of ‘disposable cup gate’?

Someone is asking for ‘immediate updates’ about panic buying at petrol stations. Let’s think about that for a moment; what defines ‘panic buying’? 5% greater demand than normal? 10%? 75%? Is there a government minister telling people to fill up Jerry cans? Does the retail fuel sector have the information system to provide this analysis in real-time?

In reality, obtaining this level of information from anything other than media reports would be incredibly difficult. And then it would be patchy based on media coverage.

Oh. My. Goodness. They have spelt COBR correctly! Any preconceptions I had about this show are dismissed.

COBR (or Cabinet Office Briefing Room) is the “dedicated crisis management facilities…activated in the event of an emergency requiring support and coordination at the national strategic level’. It does not have funky recessed lighting (but does have wallpaper that your nan would be proud of)!

In the event of activation in real life, the media 99.99999%* of the time refer to it as it’s phonetic pronunciation, COBRA. It’s a source of serious eye-roll from emergency managers, me included. We should get out more!

Gosh. 8 minutes in they are “informing all Gold Commanders” (and for dramatic tension it’s not clear what they are being informed of). Exciting stuff, but in reality:

  • the introduction of JESIP, the Joint Emergency Service Interoperability Principles, should have phased out the Gold/Silver/Bronze terminology from 2013.
  • forgive the semantics for a moment, but what do they really mean? Who are Gold Commanders? If we work on the premise that all emergency responder organisations have a strategic lead you’d be looking at thousands of people to be alerted. What alerting system would they use for that?
  • I expect what they actually mean is alerting all Police services, which would be done by the Home Office via the National Police Coordination Centre or other national coordination structure, rather than by the Cabinet Office.

I have questions about whether that JESIP rebrand was worth the effort. Gold/Silver/Bronze has a nice familiarity to it. You get to use these emojis 🥇🥈🥉. A picture paints a thousand words, right? Personally I find it easier to conceptualise gold/silver/bronze than the more anodyne terms to which they relate, strategic/tactical/operational.

“We’ve gone to significant threat” and we haven’t had the title sequence yet! I feel like they want people to think it’s terrorism, but I think we’re going to be surprised!

Oh, shall we take a look at the titles?

I think that’s a map of the UK, with the circle over the Liverpool area, could that be significant? It reminds me of those pictures from space of lights at night…

I reckon this is definitely a sign of things to come.

We have confirmation; we’re concerned about a ‘Solar Threat’. My interest is piqued. Although I think the language that would actually be used would refer to a ‘space weather event‘ but that sounds less gripping! Are we in Carrington Event territory? Oh, they actually mentioned it!! Not gonna lie, I feel a bit smug that I predicted that! Can I get a job advising the script on these kind of programmes?!

The debate they are having about the risks is one (actually, more likely 20) that I have actually participated in. They’ve held a seminar and (with any luck) had some nice sandwiches. Meteorologists had one view, industry had another. Non-specialists in either field just felt bamboozled. My Anytown methodology was an attempt to help non-experts understand complex interdependencies.

Uh oh, you guys, a high-speed plasma eruption is heading towards earth. I sense things are about to get bad!

Sidenote: This Home Secretary is, unfortunately, very well written. *eye roll emoiji*

I like the amount of precedent being provided by the people around the COBR table. We’ve had Carrington, a downed French flight, Ash cloud…this is the availability heuristic in action; a quick ‘this looks scary, but remember we’ve dealt with something similar before, you got this’. Also a very helpful way of shortcutting lots of information.

“Pizza or curry” Now that is a familiar and important emergency response question! (Also, never trust anyone who orders anchovies on pizza).

Emergencies are strange beasts. They are certain, but predicting their detail is impossible. Therefore it’s about simultaneously operating comfortably and appropriately in an information vacuum and finding ways to rapidly gather reliable information. A mixture of an art and a science. So far I think the programme is doing a good job of reflecting the balance that has to be found between ‘we need more information’ and ‘take some action’.

As is standard practice, the local Police are shown taking the lead. This is known as ‘primacy’ and happens in most situations. However, decisions are made through consensus, which requires…a multi-agency coordination structure.

Would you believe it, the police have just requested a ‘Gold Command’ to be established at a hospital (we’ve already talked about ‘gold’, I’ll come back to ‘command’ later!) In my experience this is pure fiction; there’s no way the police wouldn’t host a meeting on their territory. Unless it was the end of the world…and even then!

Colleagues on Twitter also had things to say about this suggestion. They didn’t seem too impressed; although this isn’t the partnership-working vibe I’d encourage!

I’m making an assumption that what we’re seeing is a Police internal coordination meeting, but it’s not clear. They wouldn’t have had time to alert partners and for them to assemble. It’s great that they are listing objectives, ensuring all parties are working to a common purpose, but if it’s a police meeting the objectives seem a bit odd:

  • Maintaining healthcare
  • Ensuring protection for the vulnerable
  • Safeguarding key sites and fuel supplies
  • Maintaining law and order

Adding to the mystery about what kind of meeting this is, one of the attendees is reading A Councillors Guide to Civil Emergencies. Blink and you’d miss it, but I fought with the pause button and got a screen grab…

Why would they be using this at a Police meeting? Police and Crime Commissioners, do they count as Councillors? Is that why that person is reading it?

Notice the different logo and font – I wonder if it was a TV licencing issue that meant they had to recreate a slightly different version of this LGA document?

(Also, the idea of people actually opening a plan, that’s fun! 😂)

Meanwhile back in London, they are talking about convening Local Resilience Forums. That’s just lazy script editing, surely everybody knows that the LRF is a planning, not a response body. They teach this stuff at school don’t they? (They should!)

“I want secure video link to all Gold Commanders”. Easy, not a problem at all. Everyone uses compatible technology, there is never an issue with wifi and we all know what sequence of buttons to press to get the tech to burst into life. Oh, wait, no, there are actually very few standards in the technology that organisations use which often means there are practical and user issues when trying to use the shiny video conferencing kit.

The good news is that I’ve seen this slowly changing as more organisations move to mass-market solutions rather than proprietary technology. Skype (and Microsoft Teams) has been a game-changer.

We’ve cut now to air traffic control talking to the plane that is in trouble, keen to establish how many ‘souls’ are onboard. That sounds like really dramatic language, but actually it’s super helpful. When time is tight, getting accurate info is essential. Part of that accuracy is the shared language that organisations build up. One role of an emergency manager is to be able to speak multiple organisational languages. Emergency managers are able to translate that the aviation (and maritime) sector uses ‘souls’ because:

  • It’s an umbrella term for passengers and crew,
  • Young children without a booked seat wouldn’t be counted as passengers,
  • Dead bodies are transported by air, but wouldn’t count in the incident statistics (although they would present other challenges)

Sidenote: Misogyny in the most senior levels of government, lovely. Sadly, also accurate.

Right. Hold on a moment. Why on earth are COBR identifying alternative landing sites for the plane? Absurd. I cannot even bring myself to talk about how wrong that is.

We’re now back with our senior Police Officer friend (because despite there being hundreds of thousands of police officers across the country, we’re only allowed to get to know one of them). He’s just witnessed a jumbo jet crash land on a motorway. He’s about to have what we’d call ‘a bad day at the office’.

Personally, I think it took him longer than it should have to report what he’d seen. However, he was quick to declare a major incident! Another emergency manager mantra – if in doubt shout it out. We didn’t see him undertake a dynamic risk assessment or provide a METHANE message, but the episodes are only 50 minutes, so some editing is unavoidable.

“We’re the ones who have to make decisions whilst others talk about them in pubs”. I’m stealing that. It’s going on my business cards (joke, we don’t get business cards).

Strategic COMMAND Centre? What he really means is ‘coordination’. What’s the difference you ask, well let us turn to the UK Civil Protection Lexicon which defines each term as

  • Command – the exercise of vested authority that is associated with a role or rank within an organisation, to give direction in order to achieve defined objectives
  • Coordination – the integration of multi-agency efforts and available capabilities, which may be interdependent, in order to achieve defined objectives.

Again though, don’t forget that this is drama; we need more authoritative-sounding terminology to keep the tension. The byproduct of this through, is that it probably builds a level of public misinformation, which it can then be hard to challenge in the heat of the moment.

My geography of the northeast isn’t the best, but it also seems like some weird cross-border stuff happening here. The plane crashed on the A1 somewhere around Newton Aycliffe, but the proposal is coordinate from a different police service area in Hexham (see map below)?

It’s interesting how people see things differently.

Conversely, I don’t think it’s too bad. Easy to pinpoint the location using a motorway marker. Clear access and egress routes. Lots of space to set up temporary facilities. Overhead lighting (for now at least!). Easy to control and limit onlookers.

The Civil Contingencies Act has got a mention. I probably check something in the detail of the Act once a week, I’d love the see the statistics for the webpage!

It is totally unclear clear what exactly the Prime Minister is “asking the Queen to authorise”.

In my mind, since 2010 there has been doubt about how Part 2 of the Act (Emergency Powers) would be implemented because of the removal of Regional Civil Contingencies Committee. I’m also not sure Part 2 would be used in advance of something catastrophic on a national scale. The law allows for it, but I just can’t see it.

“Worse than our most pessimistic forecast” it’s exactly because of things like this that use of Reasonable Worst Case Scenario seems too arbitrary. I’m not alone, a review of the 2009 Influenza Pandemic (remember ‘Swine Flu”) by Dame Deirdre Hine reported “unease about the reasonableness or the reasonable worst case”. Risk is a complex curve not an arbitrary point on a matrix. I have lots of views about this, now is not the time.

I see from the discussion on Twitter there was an ‘outcry’ of mourning for HL11 (the code for an old national risk assessment considering railway accidents). That risk assessment was the bane of my life for 5 years, I feel no sense of loss.

The episode ends with the lights going off across central London. I’ve seen this once before, on a much more limited scale, in 2015 following an electrical incident just off The Strand. Here’s a comparison of what was on telly and then what actually happened. Eerily similar! 

And so episode 1 ends. It was pretty far off from what I was expecting, but I broadly enjoyed it.

Helen is right, there are lots of avenues to explore with the scenario in terms of impacts and recovery considerations, but as a dramatic device, I think not having a ‘bad guy’ might make this a harder story to tell.

Hopefully, I manage to make the live-tweet of the second episode and stay tuned for the next blog instalment.

 

 

* this is not an actual statistic!

** for more info about this blog-along check out my introductory post

***already ready for COBRA: Episode 2?

COBRA: a multi-part blog-along

COBRA: a multi-part blog-along

Reading Time: 2 minutes

My career in emergency management started 15 years ago this year.

The London bombings had happened the previous year and one of (many) themes in the profession at the time was about ‘citizen journalism‘. People, actual real-life 3-dimensional members of the public, had taken pictures on their Nokia 3210’s and sent them to the BBC newsroom. It was a paradigm shift in how the media could report breaking news.

Flash forward to yesterday evening. Trains up the spout. I felt myself stressing about not being able to join a live tweet-along to a new series on Sky, COBRA. How times change, eh?!

Described as a “must-see thriller set at the heart of government during a major national crisis” this show is entirely up my street.

A selection of my incredible colleagues gave a great running commentary on Twitter.

So I was thinking about how I could take a different approach. So…strap in for a multi-part series of long-form blogs of each episode.

Like the rest of my work-related blogs, my aims are partly to demystify what the emergency management profession can sometimes over complicate, and to summarise how fiction compares to reality.

I want to hear your thoughts too! Agree/disagree with my ramblings? Let me know! @mtthwhgn.

And here’s a picture of me sat at the COBRA table…honest! 🤫

Now you’ve read the intro, get stuck into my thoughts, episode by glorious episode

Oh, and just a reminder for those at the back: let’s all remember that it’s an entertainment show, we expect (and encourage) a degree of artistic licence!