The Crisis Management Memo

Ready for your own mock disaster?

As a crisis management firm, we get many inquiries each year from individuals and organizations interested in staging mock disasters. A lot of those people don’t have a full appreciation for how difficult it is to stage a mock disaster drill, or the potential costs involved.

Many are from schools, hospitals, fire departments and other government or not-for-profit organizations who feel if we provide them with some basic information, they can stage their own mock disaster and save the costs of outside consultants. While it is possible to “build your own mock disaster,” it can be a real challenge. And, it can get expensive. That's why most of the mock disasters we conduct each year are for corporations or large hospitals.

The problem most organizations face in staging their own mock disaster is they don’t start at the right place. They often spend a lot of time creating the scenario and then somehow hope it will help them gauge their ability to cope with something similar in real life. Too often, they end up disappointed.

From our point of view, if you’re a fire department and your disaster drill involves a fire, it’s a fair bet that you already know how to put it out. If you’re a hospital, you probably already know how to handle a heavy influx of patients.

When we develop mock disasters, we start off with the questions: What is it you want to accomplish as a result of this drill? What is it you want to test? What systems or individuals do you want to test?

We then build the mock disaster around those needs and incorporate a method of testing to see how they do. Did they pass, fail, or break even? Why did they fail? What can they do to make sure they do better the next time? We want to make it tough, but so tough that everyone participating throws their arms up in despair. It needs to be challenging, not impossible. And, it needs to be realistic.

The scenario is simply a “vehicle” to test the organization’s crisis management capabilities. In our mock disasters, it is always a vehicle to test their crisis communications capabilities, as well.

All of the communications aspects of our mock disasters are videotaped, often by multiple cameras strategically located to record what individuals did right, and what they did wrong. This includes not only media interviews and news conferences, but actions inside the crisis control center and sometimes out in the field.

The video works hand-in-hand with critiques by controllers and evaluators, as well as self evaluations by those participating in the drill. While a participant or evaluator might have some built-in prejudices, the camera doesn’t.

My advice to those wanting to stage a mock disaster is first; ask themselves “why?” Why are they doing it? What do they want to accomplish? And, what kind of budget is available?

You can conduct a meaningful mock disaster on a relatively modest budget, or you can go all out. It depends on what you want to accomplish. How involved does the the scenario need to be? How many outside participants will be involved such as mock reporters, camera crews and other role-players, controllers, evaluators?

When done right, however, a mock disaster can be of tremendous value and well worth the effort and expense.

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