Emergency Service Multi-System Disruption and Recovery During Catastrophic Events

Snipped paragraphs...

In the modern emergency management system the sharing of information and the interdependence of operational assets has resulted in a form of symbiosis that also directly impacts the extended system and its' processes. Theoretically, independent actions or the failure of a single component may result in negative consequences to other components and system effectiveness may be significantly impaired, particularly following an event of magnitude.

Thus consider

...Since time of intervention is unpredictable, outcomes will vary, the decision-maker becomes part of the system and chosen courses of action will change the catastrophe.

and

...The sense of urgency associated with disaster and the concern that problems will become worse in the absence of appropriate action creates an air of uncertainty concerning what has happened or is likely to happen, coupled with a strong urge to take some action "before it is too late."

continuing

Fight reactions, mediated by adrenaline, may cause the initial manager to rely too heavily on emotion in decision making and argue unsupportable positions...

and

Hypervigilance may develop into a state of panic or near-panic. Early managers engage in a frantic search for a way out, are overwhelmed by an overload of information, some of it with questionable accuracy.

Keep in mind that

Vigilance is an adaptive pattern that develops when there is more painstaking search for relevant information, assimilation of new information in an unbiased manner, and careful appraisal of alternatives before deciding. It becomes ok to do nothing, to wait. Essential conditions for vigilance include belief that serious risks exist for any choice of action, it is realistic to be optimistic as a better alternative can be found, and there is time to find the better choice. This requires mental decompressing time for better judgment.

Aw, heck. Just go read the whole thing. Please.

Y2K: Hype or Reality?

"One of the greatest problems, as we see it, will be to differentiate between real and imagined Y2K problems and to help avoid the potential for public panic that could result due to erroneous reporting of infrastructure failures," Staten added. "Real-time analysis of reported problems during the New Years transition period will be one of the most important issues that government and emergency service agencies will face," he continued.

"It is then important to communicate these findings to the public in a clear, concise, and timely manner, so as to minimize potential public unease about the cause of electricity, water, telephone, banking or other failures that might affect their lives," Staten added.

Staten said that numerous private and government agencies, from the United States and other countries, will be providing information about suspected Y2K incidents via the internet, on toll-free telephone lines, and through the press in news releases. He urged the public to verify any unusual Y2K occurrences through reputable sources and to avoid the impulse to jump to conclusions about the cause of any outage that may occur at year's end.

Y2k Transition Monitoring

It's not quite ready for prime time yet, but heres a brief synopsis from Rick Cowles.

Ill be serving as an on-air Y2k analyst with MSNBC. Ill be in their studios from December 30 to through January 1, and possibly a bit before and after both of those dates as necessary. MSNBC is the only network that will be providing around the clock Y2k issue coverage during the transition. More info on this will be forthcoming shortly. (A personal note: the MSNBC studio is not in New York City  and is about 80 miles from my house  so Ill be relatively close if anything happens that requires my attention on the home front.)

Energyland.net and MSNBC will be exchanging real time content during the transition  so, you can keep up with whats happening with all aspects of Y2k simply by pointing your browser to Energyland.net.

Over the past month or so, weve established a worldwide network of folks in the energy industry that will be giving us real-time updates during the transition. These updates will be provided via phone, fax, email, and smoke signal, if necessary. The people who have agreed to be part of the team are operators, supervisors, and technicians sitting in the control rooms and field locations of the world, not the talking heads or spokespeople. (If you are in one of the energy related industries outside of the U.S., fit this profile, and would like to contribute, please drop me an email ASAP.)

As an element of that worldwide network, Energyland.net will be implementing a new online bulletin board at the beginning of next week. General chatter will still be posted to this forum; direct industry updates will be posted to the new forum. Also, the new bulletin board will be hosted on a different network using different software  that way, we have somewhat of a contingency plan if the MIT servers that this forum is hosted on are unavailable for any reason. Im trying to build in some redundancy and minimize the potential for common mode failure of this communication mechanism. The new bulletin board WILL NOT REQUIRE a password to read, but the only folks posting will be those who in the energy industries who have agreed to be part of our real-time reporting network.

My fiftieth birthday is New Year's eve. I'm going to celebrate at home with my wife and two kids.

Good luck and Godspeed,

Critt Jarvis
277 Beasley Road
Wilmington, North Carolina 28409

- yes, Mara. I know, I know...

-- Critt Jarvis (critt@critt.com), December 23, 1999

Answers

OK, ok...

What's a little syntax error among friends, right?

Well, uh... I did a sweat last night, then got about 3 hours sleep. My dog's barking at me.

And I really want a cigarette right now.

-- Critt Jarvis (critt@critt.com), December 23, 1999.

"One of the greatest problems, as we see it, will be to differentiate between real and imagined Y2K problems and to help avoid the potential for public panic that could result due to erroneous reporting of infrastructure failures," Staten added. "Real-time analysis of reported problems during the New Years transition period will be one of the most important issues that government and emergency service agencies will face," he continued.

In other words, let's figure out how to blame everything on something other than Y2K as quickly as possible.

Kook

-- Y2Kook (Y2Kook@usa.net), December 23, 1999.

OK, here goes my wag the dog theory on the whole thing. There may or may not be terrorism. But my guess is that any big malfunction will be blamed on terrorism by the govt, rather than accept any responsibility for lack or prep and/or misleading the peeps. And as we all know, when TPTB wag the dog, the first thing they do is send in the troops. I hope my theory is little better than a B-movie script, but its starts to sound more likely the more I read in these last few days....

BTW, Critt, just turned the big 50 myself. Welcome to the dark side of the hill....

-- nanook911 (rocki3@juno.com), December 23, 1999.