I am just back from a very blustery trip to South Wales for a weekend with old friends, experiencing all that Storm Darragh had to throw at us. It was great fun, despite losing power on Saturday morning, and realising that we had lost water as well later in the day. There’s actually not a lot to beat sitting having a drink and playing party games by candle-light but, on the long drive home, I reflected on my resilience lessons from a windy weekend, and how these could be applied more generally. Read on for some top tips for Incident Management Teams!
Pick your friends!
With 7 or the 8 of us being ex military, the lack of power presented little of a challenge. Water slightly more so, although not once we had stocked up and my other half rigged up buckets to catch rainwater for toilet flushing. I am not suggesting the all Incident Management Teams should be made up of ex military members of staff, but you should choose them based on competence for the role, and not just because of the job title.
Understand the Impacts
We had not even contemplated the fact that a loss of power would lead to a loss of water but this was to be the case. I am already used to a loss of power at home impacting our heating as the gas boiler cannot work without electricity, but loss of power leading to loss of water was not something I had experienced before. Organisations have to understand the interdependencies of suppliers, including utilities, and should test to confirm that the knowledge and understanding is correct. As an example, if power is to be off for a prolonged period, what is the impact on heating, water supplies and even, for example, building alarms and UPS devices.
Alternate Plans
No power and no water? Dinnertime? No problem. One of our group had brought a gas-powered pizza oven and feedback suggests that there is not a lot to beat pizza cooked by candlelight! The lesson? Where possible, make sure that you have an alternate way of doing things. Even if these are manual interventions. And if there is no suitable alternate, then tell people, which brings me on to communications…
Communications
As all of us had children, it was important to be able to call the outside world and let families know that we were ok (and actually having fun!). With no power, obviously our internet was out, but it turned out that all the mobile masts were also down, and no data was available. Two days on and the hotel where we had a drink in the afternoon still does not have the ability to take card payments. My phone was the only one that worked, with an occasional single bar of 5G through which we could text to get the message out that all was fine. Often businesses will have a single contract with one supplier. It is essential that there is variety within an Incident Management Team, and I would strongly suggest that more than one mobile operator is used.
Oh, and whilst on the topic of communications, despite mine being the only phone that worked, mine was the only one that did not get the emergency text (yet again!). This does highlight the need for organisations to confirm their ability to communicate with all that need to know, and to check that whatever route they use for notifications does actually work.
Flexibility
Flexibility is key. We strolled down to town (I say stroll, but it was more like coming down a mountain with a couple of river crossings, but I won’t dwell on the details). Whilst we were recovering in a rather nice hostelry, we heard from the locals that the bridge was going to be closed due to flooding. We put immediate plans into place to get back across the river so prevent having more problems later in the day. It is important that any plans have flexibility at their heart, and are adaptable to a change or deterioration in the circumstances.
Summary
We are fortunate in that we can laugh about the impacts of Storm Darragh creating a memorable weekend, and hope that these resilience lessons will be of interest. However, I do recognise that the storm has created some life-changing circumstances for some less fortunate than ourselves, and in no way mean to diminish the magnitude of the event.