Aug 24
Mock disasters are meant to find flaws
A while back, I read a newspaper article about a mock disaster designed to test the response capabilities of emergency management officials in the event of an accident at a nuclear power plant.
The headline and the gist of the story centered around how the mock disaster had uncovered flaws in the response efforts and that several responders may have been injured had it been a real event. The article acted as if the mock disaster or exercise had been a failure.
As someone who evaluates graded emergency management exercises for the nuclear industry and routinely engages in mock disasters for many other industries, I question whether uncovering a flaw in your response efforts should be considered a failure.
To my way of thinking, that is what mock disasters are all about.
Certainly, I would not want to see professional emergency responders fail to demonstrate they knew how to handle a major disaster, but I would be totally surprised if they ever performed absolutely perfectly in a drill or exercise. If they did, then the exercise, drill or mock disaster wasn't tough enough.
In preparing for a major mock disaster for a large chemical company several years ago, I was told by my client that he wanted us to develop an exercise that was tough, but not impossible. I remember him saying, At the end of the exercise, he said he wanted every single participant to say, “Whew, I'm sure glad that's over.” And, at the end of the exercise, participants did feel a degree of exhaustion, but also a degree of pride in knowing they had handled a major disaster – albeit a mock one – in a very professional matter. Were there mistakes made? Absolutely. Did they change the outcome of the exercise? Not at all.
The important thing was that they learned from their mistakes and had an opportunity to correct them so they would be even more prepared in the event of a real disaster. The fact that the exercise had some flaws – even some serious ones – doesn't mean it was a failure.
In one of the first mock disasters I ever put together, our team uncovered numerous problems that were significant and our final report included more than 100 recommendations for improvement. Yet that mock disaster may have been one of the more successful exercises we've ever participated in. Why? Because that particular organization realized it wasn't as prepared as it thought it was to handle a major disaster. As a result, the CEO had his people engage in rigorous training and subsequent drills and exercises over the years to test their crisis management capabilities. Today, that organization is one of the best prepared organizations within its industry to handle any kind of real disaster.
To me, that is the real purpose of mock disasters and emergency drills. You can participate in all the training you want to, but if you really want to test your crisis management capabilities, there's nothing quite like a well-organized mock disaster.
To this day, we still design our mock disasters to be tough, but not impossible. If we find the responders are having too easy of a time with our scenario, we typically find ways to crank it up. Mock disasters have to be challenging.
As a general rule, we videotape our mock disasters and present the client with an edited “documentary” of the exercise, along with a report that indicates what they did right and where they might need improvement. Over the years, those documentaries have been real eye openers for organizations who wanted to see for themselves how prepared – or not prepared – they were to combat crises.
To quote one of my early clients who engaged his people in extensive training and mock disasters,
The more prepared I am, the luckier I get.”
I've quoted that Louisiana chemical plant manager quite a bit over the years and I have to agree, there's a lot of truth in what he said.
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10:38 AM Feb 7