Plan for Crisis
Pre-incident planning is the proverbial “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. If we look at the timeline for Puerto Rico, they were hit on Sep 20. As of Nov 11 I’m still reading stories of how they are “just starting to get more services online” (there was story dated Oct 3 about getting some customers back online, then ATT sent a COW (“cellular on wings/wheels”), which says “70% of the population is back online”. 70%? After 47 days?
What if the COWs had already been down there? What about the day old story of Google Loon?
I’m not criticizing, but what was the impact of WEEKS of no modern infrastructure? The death toll seems to be hard to pin down, but it started at 16, and has jumped to at least 45, but apparently none of the data is dependable. How many people died from heat exhaustion, thirst, hunger, exposure because they didn’t have access to water, food, electricity to power climate control? Or because they could not call for help?
We seem to be learning a few lessons, but who wants to wait WEEKS after a crisis to have modern necessities?
An ounce of prevention…