Disaster Remembrance Week

The WorldWideHelp Group is promoting this week on the internet as Disaster Remembrance Week.

As regular readers of Gill Blog know well, thinking ahead about disaster preparedness is a full-time business. On a worldwide scale, this past year has been especially disastrous.

Parts of South Asia have still not recovered from December 26th, 2004. In the USA, normalcy hasn't returned to New Orleans. In Pakistan, thousands are still homeless, and may not survive the harsh Himalayan winter.

They need your help.

Last December and this January, the online community came together as never before to help in the aid efforts in South-East Asia. The lessons learned there were put to use, and improved upon, when the other tragic events of the year unfolded.

Can we harness that goodwill, that togetherness, that willingness to help once more?

In the cases of the disasters of last year, reconstruction is now the priority.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has unveiled its revised plan of action for 2005-2010 to assist victims of the devastating tsunami which left at least 227,000 people dead and affected more than 2.2 million in countries bordering the Indian Ocean on 26 December 2004. With a total budget of nearly 2.4 billion Swiss francs, the five-year plan will concentrate on the reconstruction of housing and rebuilding livelihoods, with 54% of the funds earmarked for these fields.

Please continue to give generously to the charity of your choice.

Tsunami Warning System

We interrupt our holiday celebrations to remember that a year ago today the world was shocked by news of the greatest natural disaster in modern history—the Southeast Asia Tsunami.

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, was an undersea earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC (07:58:53 local time) on December 26, 2004. Here, in North America, most of us were still having a Merry Christmas at the time.

The earthquake originated in the Indian Ocean off the western coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The resulting tsunami devastated the shores of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, South India, Thailand and other countries with waves up to 30 m (100 ft). It caused serious damage and deaths as far as the east coast of Africa, with the furthest recorded death due to the tsunami occurring at Port Elizabeth in South Africa, 8,000 km (5,000 mi) away from the epicentre.

At least 216,000 people are thought to have died as a result of the tsunami, and the true final toll may never be known due to bodies having been swept out to sea, but current estimates use conservative methodologies. Relief agencies warned of the possibility of more deaths as a result of epidemics caused by poor sanitation, but the threat of starvation seems to have been largely averted. The plight of the many affected people and countries prompted widespread humanitarian response.

A year later, the effects of the tsunami are still apparent in the region, and The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog has continued to focus attention of the world on the relief efforts.

Evelyn Rodrigues, who found herself caught in the tsunamis in Thailand, and had live-blogged her experiences thus bringing the pain and suffering closer to people all over the world, goes back on a Tsunami Anniversary Trek, and once more shares with her readers, a first-hand account of her trip. Worth a read for those interested in looking into the lives of people, their pain, and fears that still haunt them, one year after the terrible disaster.

In the aftermath of the disaster, scientists and governments, under the auspices of the UN, began working on an early warning system for the region. One year on from the tsunami, the BBC reports on what is planned and what is already in place with the Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami (Dart) system.

But in North America, most people's attention has turned to this year's hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, that ravaged the U.S. gulf coast. When asked about the tsunami, many Americans might ask, "Was that last Christmas?"

What's for Americans to be concerned about? We're safely across an international date line and a world away from tsunamis, right?

The California Seismic Safety Commission has just released a new report: The Tsunami Threat To California Report (pdf). California isn't any better prepared for a tsunami than the Gulf Coast was for the hurricanes—probably less so.

The Report makes seven main findings:

1. tsunamis are a real and significant threat to life and property along the coast;

2. risks to our major ports are most significant given the concentration of jobs, imports/exports and the potential to affect the nation;

3. we're not educated about what to do in the event of a tsunami;

4. the warning system is inadequate;

5. building codes in areas potentially affected by tsunamis are insufficient;

6. federal mapping resources are underutilized by planners to coordinate an evacuation; and,

7. the Governor's Office of Emergency Planning has stepped up since the Southeast Asia Tsunami and the more recent tsunami warning for California on June 14 and has made efforts to get ready.

But more needs to be done. The report, available on the website of the California Seismic Safety Commission, has detailed recommendations that call for more funding, better education, and more cross-jurisdictional cooperation among government entities.

On the eve of the anniversary of the Southeast Asia Tsunami, the White House released a plan Friday directing federal agencies to increase earthquake and volcano monitoring systems, deep ocean buoys and other high-tech means of alerting oceanside communities, according to a report by the Associated Press.

Specifically, the plan written by the president's National Science and Technology Council directs federal agencies to:

•Develop risk assessments of the potential tsunami hazards for all U.S. coastal regions.

•Increase the number of tsunami buoys, tide gauge and seismic sensors feeding real-time data into computer models to improve tsunami forecasting and warning systems along Pacific, Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico coastlines.

•Give technical help to improve warning systems for tsunamis and other hazards in the Indian Ocean.

•Encourage communities to develop tsunami response plans, and to build and plan in ways that can reduce the impact of a future tsunami.

John Marburger, who directs the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said U.S.-led improvements in tsunami detection and warning since a year ago made people safer at home and work, and the new plan will further reduce risks to life and property. Congress appropriated $24 million in May for a better U.S. tsunami system.

An international tsunami expert, however, said more high-tech warning buoys won't make a difference unless more cities and towns prepare, so that people know where to seek shelter. He also urged more land-use planning to avoid building schools and hospitals near ocean shores.

With the time between the earthquake event and the tsunami reaching shores being measured in minutes or hours, compared to days and weeks in the case of hurricanes, it seems that planning ahead and preparedness are at least if not more important than warning systems.

Alvaro Morales Katrina Photographs

Here's a new link to "Five Days With Katrina" the Alvaro Morales slideshow that is hosted again on the Kodak Gallery. These extraordinary photographs, taken by Alvaro R. Morales Villa, a Nicaraguan who worked in the Chateau Sonesta hotel in the French Quarter of New Orleans, were first linked on the Gill Blog on September 10th but the photo gallery has moved to a new site.

Our original post included links to other excellent photoblogs, too, that were specifically started in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and are still maintained as active blogs today. Two of the best Katrina photo blogs are Eye of the Storm and Operation Eden. Nearly four months after Hurricane Katrina hit, it's worth checking back to these extraordinary weblogs to see what's been happening on the ground in the Gulf Coast communities since the mainstream media turned our attention to more recent news.

As a Christmas tree and a stove sit outside of a trailer parked in front of a home gutted by Hurricane Katrina in Chalmette, Louisiana, on Tuesday, Dec. 20, Hurricane Katrina is the overwhelming choice for 2005's Top Story, editors and news directors say, according to a recent media survey by the Associated Press.

The Carnival of Hurricane Relief was hosted on Gill Blog as a small antidote to "relief fatigue" and we hope you'll check it out again, or for the first time if you're new to Gill Blog and missed our presentation on November 30th, the three month anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans.

Telecommuting Eases New York City Transit Strike

NYC has an Alternative Transportation Information Center online to help commuters cope with the disruption caused by a strike by transit workers. The workable alternative could be telework.

New Yorkers have come a long way since the last transit strike 25 years ago, according to a report by internetnews.com:

Today, the strike by 33,000 transit workers that left nearly the 7 million people who use mass transit out in the cold, can't grind commerce to a halt in the "old-fashioned" way it did back in 1980.

At least, online it can't. Above ground is another story, as New York-based workers who had to be in the office hoofed it, pedaled bikes in sub-zero temperatures, or otherwise cajoled spots in commuter cars and available taxicabs in order to get to where they needed to be today.

The continued growth of broadband throughout the Untied States, plus the development of remote corporate networks, has made working from home as efficient as video conferencing with colleagues on a different coast.

And that access has become big business, as evidenced by the number of Web services providers jumping in to help local business today.

Torrance, Calif.-based LiveOffice, a provider of Web services, said today it is offering free Web conferencing and teleconferencing services to any New Yorker affected by the strike.

"We want everyone in New York to have access to conferencing technologies so that they can effectively conduct business from home without commuting," Ted Heieck, product manager for LiveOffice, said in a statement. "Our Web-based services are easy to use and perfectly suited to help New Yorkers stay productive during the transit strike."

Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, had something to say about telework in an article recently published on Tech Central Station about Some 21st Century Ideas on Energy and Employment:

One suggestion that does make sense to me is to encourage telecommuting and work at home. Managers and unions don't like this much: Managers because they like to have workers in plain sight (which also makes managers look more important), and unions because it's harder to organize workers who aren't all in one place. But while there's still plenty of work that can't be done at home, there's a lot more these days that can, and people who work at home use a lot less gas. On days when I don't have to go to campus, I sometimes stay home all day, and even when I go out to run errands, I tend to log a lot fewer miles than I do on days when I go to the office. There have been a few moves to make tax laws and workplace regulations more friendly to telecommuters and home-based businesses, but this is a subject that should get another look. The shift to cottage industry is already underway, for lots of other valid reasons, and its energy efficiency is just another attraction.

What's more, the federal government, which has lots of employees, and lots of jobs that can be done from home, should take a very aggressive role in promoting telecommuting internally. If this shrinks the demand for new federal buildings, so much the better. It also occurs to me that once "working" doesn't come to mean "being in the office for eight hours regardless of whether anything gets done," people might start looking for output-related metrics, which might allow us to shrink the number of federal employees -- something sure to make both managers and unions unhappy, but something also likely to be good news for taxpayers.

And that's where the telework initiatives of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) presented on their Interagency Telework Site are right on point:

Telework (also called telecommuting) is the ability to do your work at a location other than your "official duty station." With portable computers, high speed telecommunications links, and ever-present pocket communications devices, many employees today can work almost anywhere at least some of the time. Using the flexibility to work in a home office or telework center when it is effective to do so is clearly the wave of the future, and for many of us the future is already here.

If you're stranded at home or can't get much done at the office because coworkers can't make it in on account of the transit strike, this might a chance to read the OPM Telework Manual.

As long as workers are at home, this is probably as good a time as any for office managers to consider the benefits of telework as a matter of corporate policy, and to make plans for business continuity during the next workplace interruption.

Planning for a Silver Lining

If you don't have a business continuity plan in place for your company, maybe you should get one of these new high-tech portable inflatable meeting rooms...because you're gonna have to call a meeting to find out who's to blame.

The Public Manager

The only journal of its kind presents opportunities for public managers and executives to write and share ideas about critical public management issues.

Gill was introduced to the publishers of The Public Manager through our collaborations on the telework initiative with officials at the U.S. General Services Administration, the GSA, who recommended we publish an article on the subject of how natural disasters have impacted not only discussions of disaster preparedness but also business continuity planning.

The Public Manager is a quarterly journal published by The Bureaucrat, Inc., a not-for-profit organization chartered and devoted to furthering knowledge and best practice at all levels of government.

Our paper, Continuity Planning in a Post-Katrina World, is published in the Fall 2005 issue of The Public Manager, which is already in the hands of subscribers. And now the good news for our readers. As a special service to everyone interested in the topic of business continuity planning and telework, The Public Manager is now offering full access to the complete unabridged article free to download here.

The time has come for the federal government to integrate standard principles of business continuity, emergency management, and risk management into a common template and include telework as a key component of workplace continuity strategy. This article examines how the times ahead will inevitably force private-sector participants to assess the strategic value of telework in maintaining critical operations, and public-sector organizations will be expected to provide leadership.

Thanks to the publishers of The Public Manager for contributing free access to our recent article for those interested in our special webcast dealing with business continuity planning and teleworking. This particular multimedia session examines the economic impact of pandemics, which can be mitigated by integrating telework into business continuity planning. Discussions include strategies for addressing absenteeism and maintaining corporate operations in such an environment, with contibutions by officials of the GSA describing the interagency telework site and its special features.

For more information about this special webcast, you can review our posts here, here, and here, or go directly to our webcast.

Pandemic Preparedness

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Avian Flu could impose a $675 billion hit to the U.S. economy, underscoring the need for businesses and other organizations to adequately plan for the continuity of operations.

Gill Advisors Inc. and Streamlogics Inc. will conduct a webcast tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m. to discuss how the economic impact of an outbreak might be better managed by integrating telework as a core component of a business continuity plan. They will be joined by a Senior Official of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) discussing GSA’s telework initiative.

For Gill Advisors Managing Director Tony Gill, it's a case of déjà vu all over again. The 2003 SARS outbreak in Toronto began in a hospital located within two miles of his home where he had been taking his father for physiotherapy after knee replacement surgery. The first significant business casualty was the Canadian operations of a global IT firm, whose headquarters were visible from the window of his daughter’s pre-school classroom. The proximity to the outbreak’s epicenter forced him and his wife to remove their daughter from school, stay home, and try to maintain work productivity using a home broadband connection when deadlines were looming.

"The company where I worked was trying to meet an end of the week deadline on a major proposal," Gill recalls, "I was one of the point people one a team of seven, and the thought of being away for an extended period would have been inconceivable a week earlier." The team quickly went into improvisational mode using broadband to exchange emails and documents that required constant revision. “We were on the phones constantly” he continues "but within a short time we set one rule: if you leave your desk, have your cell phone on so if we need you, you’re no more than a call away."

The experience was illuminating as it showed that an improvised adaptation of telework could be used to carry out work. It also proved telework wasn’t necessarily the exclusive domain of IT firms, but could be applied within a broad spectrum of industries.

"Broadband’s here, but there are so many more tools that actually replicate face to face contact," Gill says enthusiastically, "the key is identifying tasks, systematizing them, and incorporating more robust telework tools like webcasting and desktop sharing."

The webcast will discuss tangible ways in which telework can be integrated into a wide range of industries to mitigate the economic hit associated with a potential outbreak. The webcast is available by registration and can be accessed at this link. Anyone unable to attend the live webcast may access the archive by clicking the above link.

By the way, if you're wondering how our improvised team fared with its proposal during that trying week, we won the business.

Video Games Simulate Disaster Response

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is funding a series of computer games to help prepare health workers and other first responders facing bioterror attacks, nuclear accidents and pandemics, according to this report in Wired News

Backed also by Chicago's Department of Public Health, a University of Illinois at Chicago research team is developing a series of games that simulate health-related emergencies as well as biological, chemical, radiological and natural disasters.

"These games let people train on their own schedules," said Eric Holdeman, an expert in disaster relief and director of Washington state's King County Office of Emergency Management. "And it gets us away from death by PowerPoint in the typical classroom environment. It's also cost-effective."

The first game, which took three months to develop, trains health workers to respond to an anthrax outbreak. A massive flu pandemic simulation is in the works.

Players learn how to set up MASH sites, evaluate patients and dispense drugs. They also are trained to distribute medications to health-care sites and notify the public, instructing people on what to do -- without instilling panic.

Throughout the game, trainees' responses are scored for speed and appropriateness.

The game also helps health workers and volunteers cross-train for more than one job. Crisis teams are typically understaffed. The scoring helps players determine what they are good at and what skills they need to sharpen.

There are about 23 different roles for each crisis, and each scenario requires different training, explained Dr. Colleen Monahan, an epidemiologist and the simulations' lead programmer.

"Avian flu is a real challenge, because people will be really scared," she said. "Fifty percent of people who get avian flu die, regardless of age. Quarantines, keeping people away from each other, will be difficult. Our approach helps people train for multiple tasks and role-play with each other without the cost and on their own schedules."

Traditionally, health-care workers are trained by role-playing or watching videos. The simulations won't entirely replace conventional approaches, Monahan said, but they will shorten and focus the face-to-face training.

Stowe Boyd, a well-known "media subversive" as he calls himself, is an internationally recognized authority on real-time, collaborative and social technologies, and President/COO of Corante. Stowe has sussed out this video game, and presents some screen captures on his weblog column, as well. His take on disaster planning by video game role playing?

This is the sort of thing that I think is essential for preparing for the inevitable Disaster 2.0, like a bird flu pandemic, biological terrorism, or a 100 year storm hitting Manhattan. Instead of overbred bureaucrats holding endless planning sessions and writing voluminous reports about our lack of preparedness, the US Government or Bill Gates should throw a few tens or hundreds of millions of dollars into a massively parallel online game system where those who get to level 100 will get their college paid for, or $50,000/year, or some other NBA-level inducements. We could have millions of people learning what to do in an emergency, and the top 10% or 15% could make serioius coin.

And in the case of an emergency, when you are standing knee deep in the rising water in a New York City subway, and someone starts telling everyone what to do, you'd be much happier knowing that she is a level 100 adept of the Disaster 2.0 game instead of some political appointee with a flair for office politics.

Not unlike the military using video game simulations to prepare young men and women to respond in real time to unfamiliar situations and strange places under stressful circumstances.

Mitigating Economic Impact of Pandemics

A human outbreak of bird flu in the United States could deal a $675 billion blow to the economy, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said today, citing a new paper by the Congressional Budget Office, according to the latest press reports.

Frist said the study assumed a 2.5 percent mortality rate, that 30 percent of the population would be infected and that employees would miss three weeks of work. "A nearly $700 billion hit to our economy -- almost half of which is brought on by fear and confusion -- gives us every reason to begin preparing a prescription and implementing a course of action today," Frist said in a statement.

Our upcoming December 15th webcast provides strategies to address absenteeism and maintain operations. Here's a copy of the press release we've issued today, announcing the upcoming webcast.

Mitigating Economic Impact of Pandemics by Integrating Telework into Business Continuity

~Upcoming Webcast Provides Strategies to Address Absenteeism, Maintain Operations~

The potential economic impact of a pandemic outbreak has been estimated at $166 billion in the US alone, with a chief cause being prolonged periods of large scale employee absenteeism.

Discussion about the potential outbreak of the H5N1 Avian Flu focuses largely on public health strategies but, public and private sector organizations need to assess their options to maintain the continuity of their operations.

Gill Advisors Inc. and Streamlogics Inc. will conduct a live webcast on Thursday December 15th at 9:30 AM EST discussing how the economic impact of an outbreak might be better managed by integrating TeleWork as a crucial component of a business continuity plan.

The webcast focuses on several concerns being faced by organizations today, and offers solutions to better manage operational impact. Tony Gill, Managing Director of Gill breaks the session down into the following components:

"We begin by demonstrating how the variables associated with pandemics differ markedly from those of known events. We describe how TeleWork logically aligns with core business continuity principles – especially under a different set of circumstances. We’ll be joined by a Senior Official of the US General Services Administration (GSA) who will show how GSA's TeleWork initiatives provide valuable planning templates."

Gill, whose work in this field has appeared in journals in the US and UK, recently had his article Continuity Planning in a Post-Katrina World published in the most recent edition of The Public Manager, a prominent Washington DC-based public policy journal.

TeleWork has clearly evolved and today encompasses so many more elements like webcasting and desktop sharing, all made possible by the proliferation of broadband services. Join us on the webcast and learn more.

Click here to register for free access the webcast.

Anyone who is unable to schedule themselves for this webcast on Thursday, December 15, at 9:30 AM EST may access the archive afterward at their convenience by clicking this link.

The Value of Telework in Business Continuity

Telework Exchange, an online community focused on eliminating "telework gridlock" in the Federal government, today announced the results of a continuity of operations (COOP) study - "COOP: A Wake Up Call."

The study reveals Federal employees' level of continuity of operations planning awareness, and underscores the value of telework in business continuity. Results of the study indicate that 45 percent of Federal employee respondents do not have personal guidance from their agencies on how to handle a disaster, and more than 40 percent feel their agency is not prepared to continue business operations in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.

"The findings of 'COOP: A Wake Up Call' study demonstrate the value of telework programs as well as the need to increase awareness of business continuity preparedness," said Stephen W.T. O'Keeffe, executive director, Telework Exchange.

"With the recent hurricane season as well as the threat of an avian flu pandemic, telework is a critical component in disaster preparedness for the United States government. Telework can provide better inter- and intra- agency communications with minimal to no business interruption. The Telework Exchange is committed to enabling public-private sector dialogue to accelerate telework adoption and awareness in the Federal government."

A copy of the study is available to download free with registration at the Telework Exchange website, which offers a lot of other free resources and news articles related to teleworking.

According to an article in Network World magazine, lawmakers in Washington DC have been making noise on the telework front lately, with legislatures convening to discuss what government agencies and corporations are doing to help the U.S. workforce deal with volatile gas prices.

And recently, here on the Gill Blog, we wrote about a short post also connecting telework to broadband, BCM and gas prices.

Pandemic Flu a Threat but Few Prepared

A survey presented today in Washington DC at a roundtable at the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions found concern and uncertainty among U.S. employers about preparedness for any pandemic flu outbreak affecting the workplace.

Deloitte, ERIC Survey Finds Concern, Uncertainty Among U.S. Employers

WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. companies view an influenza pandemic as a real threat to the nation, but two-thirds believe they have inadequately planned to protect themselves in the event of an outbreak, according to a survey released today by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions and The ERISA Industry Committee.

Conducted in the weeks after the federal government released the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza, the survey of U.S. employers was presented at a roundtable discussion on business preparedness sponsored by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. The survey found that:

-- 66 percent of respondents said their company had not adequately planned to protect itself from a pandemic flu outbreak, while 14 percent said they had adequately planned, and 20 percent were undecided.

-- 58 percent said they are not confident their company is prepared to manage a pandemic flu outbreak, while 18 percent said they are confident they are prepared, and 24 percent were undecided.

-- 73 percent said their company could use help understanding what it should do to plan for a pandemic flu outbreak, while 14 percent said they did not need help, and 13 percent were undecided.

-- 39 percent believed there wasn't much a company could do to prepare itself for a pandemic flu outbreak, while 41 percent disagreed with that statement, and 20 percent were undecided.

"American businesses are beginning to recognize that a pandemic flu outbreak would present a clear and present danger to their employees, their operations and their bottom lines," said Tommy G. Thompson, the independent chairman of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. "All segments of society have a role to play in making sure we are prepared to cope with a pandemic flu or any public health emergency, and that includes the business community."

"Major employers are concerned at the destructive potential of disasters and pandemics, and want to protect their workers," said Edwina Rogers, Vice President for Health Policy of The ERISA Industry Committee. "If the private sector experiences that kind of crisis without proper planning, there could be major implications for the U.S. economy."

While respondents to the survey believed their company is concerned and that a pandemic would be a threat to the nation as a whole, they were less certain that it would adversely affect their business:

-- 57 percent of companies surveyed believe a pandemic flu presents a real threat to the United States, while 9 percent disagreed, and 34 percent were undecided.

-- 43 percent said their company is very concerned about a pandemic flu outbreak, while 25 percent said they weren't very concerned, 31 percent were undecided.

-- 40 percent said there is a high probability that a pandemic flu outbreak would adversely affect their business, while 17 percent said it would not, and 43 percent were undecided.

When asked about potential options for coping with pandemic flu, 60 percent agreed that allowing employees to telecommute would be one effective way to address an outbreak, 11 percent disagreed and 29 percent were undecided. Companies also were largely undecided on whether they would waive sick leave restrictions in order to encourage sick employees to stay at home. Sixty-three percent said they were undecided, 27 percent said they would waive the restrictions and 10 percent said they would not.

A pandemic influenza is a global outbreak of the flu that occurs when a new virus emerges for which there is little immunity among humans. In the 20th century, there were three pandemics: 1918 (500,000 deaths in the United States, and up to 2 million deaths worldwide), and 1968 (34,000 deaths in the United States, and 700,000 deaths worldwide).

The survey was conducted Nov. 14-23. Results were presented on December 2 at a roundtable at the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions in Washington, D.C.

Next week, the government will release a checklist of pandemic preparations that companies should take. We'll post the checklist from the government here, and add our own thoughts.

Also, Gill Advisors Inc. will be offering a free webcast here with Streamlogics on the subject of telework, with contributions by the GSA, the General Services Administration of the U.S. Government.