DISASTER PLANNING: Reaction and Response

A disaster has happened, what do we do?

A fire, flood, hardware failure in a data centre, computer meltdown, the stock-market crashed or our accountant crashed her car on the way to work today (and won’t be back for a month). Disasters may come in all shapes and sizes, but there are standard processes we can adopt when faced with any type disaster.

Because we have a Disaster Plan that identifies key people, roles and responsibilities during disaster... we already have a starting point and are not thrown immediately into chaos. It’s time to follow the next steps…

1 - Contact key personnel and local Emergency Services if required (Maintain and regularly update a contact list of key personnel to contact during times of disaster. The list should include work and mobile numbers as well as positions and roles, and be readily accessible in hard-copy laminated form throughout the organization. Know who to contact when something goes wrong).

2 - Conduct an Initial Assessment (How wide-spread is the disaster? Is anyone injured or at immediate risk of injury? What scale of response is required?

3 – Re-establish Contact with Management and/or Emergency Services to provide initial updates (Number of persons injured; details of injuries and first-aid efforts, estimates of financial loss etc. etc.)

4 – Establish a Control Point (fortunately our Disaster Plan already identifies suitable locations and the communications systems we can use in our Control Point during a disaster)

5 – Control the Disaster Area (this could include any number of activities depending on the disaster – For a computer virus outbreak it may involve shutting down all site computers. For a fire, isolating the area and preventing access until emergency services arrive.

6 – Carry out Response Procedures (restore data from backup using the 'restore' guide' sticky-taped to the server, extinguish the fire using the clearly marked fire extinguishers, evacuate to other premises using our evacuation plan, engage contractors picked from our Contact List to fill immediate staffing shortages … whatever is required to commence a process of recovery)

Throughout all of the above activities the overriding priorities are to protect life and property; to work safely; to continually gather intelligence, and to continually communicate so people are informed of the situation and any risks to personal wellbeing.

Would anyone like to add anything to the above procedural guide?

Cheers, Don

Don, I appreciate all that you have added to these posts. All of it is excellent.

I've been in I.T. since '82 (yes, before I.T. existed) and I've been in EMS, EMA, and Red Cross for about 25 years. One thing that most planners, including city planners, company planners, etc. fail to include or think about is this: Initial operations will be dimished because the people involved will want to check on their own family. If any of the family members are affected they will want to be with them. In the case of emergency personnel, that means the rescuers (all types) will be fewer if their families are affected. "When 911 can't respond" would mean, they are out tending to their own families.

Hi Kenneth,

Thanks for the kind comment, and also for sharing your considerable experience - Yes, first-responders to large disasters are often placed in a position of duty-v-family. Not a nice place to be; and an aspect that can impact on the scale of a response effort.

It might be a truism, but in my experience the larger the disaster the less likely we may be to receive external help because response resources are stretched and/or tending to their own problems - all the more reason to foster the type of self-help mindset we are trying to encourage throughout this event.

May I also add…

Up until this point we have really only internalized the processes of disaster planning; looked at disasters from the perspective of a disaster happening to us. We should also consider that Charity’s and Non Profit Organizations exist to help people. Many, if not most NPO’s are more likely to be helping other people during disaster than they are to internalize and only consider their own problems. What can we do to support NPO’s helping others during disaster? (eg Red Cross Chapters, Food Banks, NPO’s assisting people during a disaster evacuation, volunteer emergency workers, any NPO suddenly faced with people in crisis and called to help)

The processes of disaster planning and management are not dissimilar when we help other people, but what’s usually lacking are the tools we need and tend to take for granted when working internally; systems for tracking staff, resources and roles etc. simply don’t exist when we move beyond the org to help others. What’s also missing are standards of data interchange; simple methods of sharing information between all the organizations helping victims.

Addressing this area of disaster planning, management and response is the purpose of a global development project I am involved with called Sahana – born from the immediacy of need by NPO’s during the SE Asian Tsunami, Sahana is a suite of applications designed to provide organizations with the tools they need when working in or near a disaster. It’s an Open Source project and freely downloadable.

PS – and we are always looking for additional volunteers :-)

Cheers, Don