Jun 10
BP Response Plan "reads like fiction"
If there was ever a reason to make sure your corporate crisis plan is always up to date and is maintained to have accurate contact information, BP made that point this week.
In an Associated Press story out of Venice, Louisiana, a team of reporters noted a series of wrong information in BP’s response plan for a Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
For starters, the 2009 plan listed Prof. Peter Lutz as a national wildlife expert.
Fine, except Prof. Lutz died in 2005.
The plan reads, the headline said, “like fiction.”
Under a heading of “sensitive biological resources, “the plan listed marine mammals including walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals." Fine, except none live anywhere near the Gulf of Mexico.
The names and numbers of several Texas A&M University marine life specialists were wrong, the AP reported. So are the numbers for marine mammal stranding network offices in Louisiana and Florida, which the AP said, are no longer in service.
The Associated Press analysis said BP’s 582-page regional spill plan for the Gulf of Mexico and its 52-page site-specfic plan for the Deepwater Horizon rig, “are riddled with omissions and glaring errors."
The Associated Press concluded that BP officials “have pretty much been making it up as they go along.” They said the plan, approved by the federal government before BP drilled the infamous leaking well understated the dangers posed by an uncontrolled leak and overstated the company’s preparedness to deal with one.
A Google search for “BP Emergency Response Plan” finds hundreds of hits with most of the news stories reporting the plan was woefully inadequate.
Now for years, I have always said crisis plans (or emergency response plans) are only one part of the equation in crisis management. It still takes people, I have said, to manage crises. Plans can’t do that for you. But if you are even thinking of having a crisis management or emergency response plan, you ought to take the time to make sure it not only makes a little sense, but would actually help you out in a crisis. BP’s plan, outdated and apparently inaccurate in many ways, was probably as good as no plan at all. “Making it up as you go along” is not really a solid crisis management philosophy.
In writing crisis plans for the past quarter century, I have heard many clients or prospective clients argue that the type of crisis I wanted them to consider “could just never happen.” It is just that kind of opinion that may have gotten BP into the crisis it is trying to deal with today. Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to be ready to handle a huge crisis that may never happen than to just try to cast a blind eye to that potential catastrophe and ignore it as even a remote possibility?
Would it be so wrong for an oil company to be over prepared for a major oil leak rather than the other way around?
Being prepared starts with at least having a management plan that has correct information in it. BP’s doesn’t seem to pass that test.
Remember Prof. Lutz, the University of Miami expert resource for dealing with Gulf wildlife in BP’s plan? Not only was he dead four years before BP published its plan, but he left Miami nearly 20 years ago to lead the marine biology department at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.
Wonder who was in charge of updating BP’s plan and making sure the contact information was current? I’m sure a lot of people at BP, the federal government and a whole lot of people in Louisiana are wondering the same thing right now.
For more on this story, go to:
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/national_world/stories/2010/06/10/bps-plan-for-spill-reads-like-fiction.html?sid=101
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10:39 AM Feb 7