Category Archives: Disaster Preparedness

What Is Resiliency?

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When it comes to disasters, prevention is of course better than recovery. But the real world is not paradise and catastrophes will occur. That inevitability means that how companies are able to respond and bounce back might be the most important aspect of disaster management.

Nobody’s perfect — but everyone can be resilient.

But what does that mean? What is resiliency?

Michael Collins of Argonne National Laboratory is helping define it for communities across the United States. And today at the World Conference on Disaster Management in Toronto, he discussed how, along with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), his agency has been tasked with sending officials throughout the nation to assess how each area stacks up. Ultimately, the goal is to compile an objective, quantitative, comprehensive database so that the government — federal, state and local — has a baseline against which municipalities can be compered. It is an in-depth, long-term project that will greatly aid both DHS and FEMA in determining how communities can become more resistant to disasters.

So far, the “resiliency index” they are developing remains in its infancy. We will bring you more on it in the near future as I flesh out more of the details and get the opportunity to speak with Collins directly.

But as they continue to push things forward, let’s first look at a few of the definitions that Collins shared today in his presentation on what resiliency really means.

“Our goal is to ensure a more resilient nation. One in which individuals, communities and our economy can adapt to changing conditions as well as withstand and rapidly recover from disruption due to emergencies.” – Barak Obama

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“The capability to anticipate risk, limit impact and bounce back rapidly through survival, adaptability evolution and growth in the face of turbulent change” – Community & Regional Resilience Institute

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“The ability of individuals and communities to deal with a state of continuous, long term stress; the ability to find unknown inner strengths and resources in order to cope effectively; the measure of adaptation and flexibility” – Michael Ganor

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“The ability of community members to take meaningful deliberate collective action to remedy the impact of a problem.” – Building Resilience to Mass Trauma Events

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“A sustainable network of physical systems and human communities, capable of managing extreme events, during disasters, both must be able to function under extreme stress.” – David R. Godschalk

Coming Soon: The End of the World

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As I’m sure you’ve probably heard by now, the world is ending tomorrow. Actually according to the pamphlet I was handed the other day by the marching crowd in midtown Manhattan, the real end of the world will happen in five months on October 21. Tomorrow is simply the date of the Rapture when Jesus Christ is scheduled to return, take the true believers off to Heaven and then kick off the apocalyptic festivities with a massive earthquake that will eventually take out the rest of the sinners by Halloween. Which is too bad because I was thinking about going on vacation this summer. At least the beaches won’t be crowded. (And yes, it’s pretty much guaranteed that I won’t be one of Jesus’ draft picks.)

Now I’m not one to criticize someone’s religious beliefs, but it’s not the first time someone’s predicted the end of the world (2012 anyone?) and last I checked we’re still here. And it’s a good thing too because I think we would all feel pretty dumb if we had been working in an industry that’s all about planning for possible disasters and we failed to account for the biggest risk of all. At the very least, I’m sure we could have put those insurance premiums to better use.

Even the insurers could have profited, according to a post I wish I wrote by Laura Mazzuca Toops over at PropertyCasualty360.com. As she wisely pointed out:

If you think the Japan earthquake and Mississippi flooding presented problems with the manufacturing supply chain, consider the business implications of some 2 billion people worldwide just up and disappearing one day–whether by Rapture, alien abduction or just going on a short visit to see Elvis, Jim Morrison and Tupak. If this isn’t an opportunity to market business interruption coverage, I don’t know what is.

Also:

Property-casualty coverage should be selling like hotcakes, considering the accidents and other disasters that will inevitably happen when the Chosen are snatched from behind the wheel (and the “act of God” exclusion could let insurers off the hook for many of the sure-to-be massive claims).

The End of Days has also brought out the entrepreneurial spirit in some enterprising individuals. For a fee, one company will take care of your pets after you’ve been “raptured” while another will send previously written emails from you to your heathen loved ones who are left behind after you’ve been saved. After all, just because the world’s ending doesn’t mean you can’t make a buck before you go.

So hopefully, when tomorrow rolls around, you’re one of the lucky ones. If not, I suggest you kick back, relax with the cold beverage of your choice and maybe you’ll get to watch some amazing fireworks.

Personally, I think we’re in the clear, but you never know. Either way, I’ve got my soundtrack, courtesy of Medeski Martin & Wood. See you next week?

UPDATE: Zurich Talks “Ring of Fire” at RIMS 2011

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(This post now include a video of the presentation given at RIMS 2011–definitely worth a view)

Zurich held a press conference this morning regarding a topic that has been in recent news more time than we would like — earthquakes. In “Epicenter Pacific Coast,” three CEOs from Zurich and one geologist from Simon Fraser University discussed the risk of a major earthquake in the United States and what can be done to prepare for such an event.

Mike Kerner, CEO of Zurich Global Corporate in North America, stressed the importance that individuals and companies in the States know:

  • Their exposures, and all of them
  • Are informed of risk engineering
  • Acknowledge that traditional policies may not cover all losses
  • What you can’t mitigate, insure
  • Understand specific policy terms (for example, the definition of “tsunami”)

Brent Ward, quaternary geologist professor, discussed the “ring of fire” that is known for being an earthquake hotspot — approximately 90% of all earthquakes occur in the ring of fire.

Ward stated that the Pacific Northwest, which lies within the ring of fire zone, has a similar configuration as that of Japan and Chile, where two of the worst earthquakes in history have recently struck.

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“On average, a major earthquake of 9.0 magnitude or greater only happens every 500 to 600 years in the United States, but when it happens, it’s going to be bad,” Ward said.

Following Ward, Mike Foley, CEO of Zurich North America Commercial, mentioned the frequency with which the world has experienced horrific natural disasters, especially in the populated ring of fire area. “Four of the five costliest quakes in the past 30 years occurred in the last 13 months along the ring of fire,” Foley said.

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“While we can’t predict, we can prepare.”

Cloud Computing: Convenience Versus Confidence

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Cloud computing has become a convenient and cost efficient way for companies to store data while using remote, shared servers located in the “cloud.” But what is cheap and easy, isn’t always safe.

Take Amazon.com, for example. The company branched out into the cloud computing business five years ago and has since offered computing resources to thousands of businesses — most of them small with a low likelhood of having data backup and recovery services (bad risk management!).

Last week, that lapse in risk management was felt after Amazon.com’s cloud services crashed, disrupting web services for companies as large as Pfizer and as small as FourSquare.

The Amazon interruption, said Lew Moorman, chief strategy officer of Rackspace, a specialist in data center services, was the computing equivalent of an airplane crash.

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It is a major episode with widespread damage. But airline travel, he noted, is still safer than traveling in a car — analogous to cloud computing being safer than data centers run by individual companies.

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As of this morning, many of the affected sites are back online, though “some historical data might be missing,” according to Chartbeat, a company that monitors the online presence of websites.

The risks of cloud computing is not a new topic among business owners, CIOs and risk managers — far from it. For years, talk has circled regarding privacy, compliance and legal issues. One recent article in PC World examines the risks of cloud computing. It covers topics such as who accesses your data, regulatory compliance and (probably most importantly) data loss and recovery.

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Corporate cloud computing is expected to grow rapidly, by more than 25% a year, to $55.5 billion by 2014, according to International Data Corporation estimates. And as the popularity of cloud computing grows, so will the potential risks. With that in mind, companies are wise to evaluate such perils and plan for what could go wrong with such a modern technology marvel.