What's your 'Godzilla' preparedness plan?
In 1954, Japanese film director Ishirō Honda and Toho Studios brought Godzilla to life on the big screen. In the groundbreaking sci-fi thriller, Japanese authorities deal with the sudden attack of a giant monster threatening the destruction of Tokyo. Still considered by many to be the greatest monster-disaster movie of all-time, Godzilla represented the very real fears in post-war Japan from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the possibility of recurrence. Specifically, Godzilla is the metaphor for nuclear proliferation.
In today's reality, Godzilla could represent anything from a catastrophic natural disaster to a terrorist event or an even more deadly, global pandemic. Because these are the 'Godzillas' we know. But what about the unimaginable monsters we haven't encountered yet?
Many people subscribe to public safety notifications, typically on our phones, when there are traffic accidents and weather emergencies in our communities. In some areas wildfires, earthquakes, and flooding are likely, and sadly, becoming more common. And tragically, too many communities have suffered the imminent threats of active shooter alerts.
But there are more catastrophic events lurking in our futures that will be communicated in the same way. Will we recognize those notifications as genuine and authentic? Will a threat in plain and visible terms be enough?
One early Saturday morning, January 13, 2018, a ballistic missile alert was accidentally issued via the Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alert System over television, radio, and cellphones in the state of Hawaii. The alert stated that there was an incoming ballistic missile threat to Hawaii, advised residents to seek shelter, and concluded:
"This is not a drill…”
For 38 minutes, the citizens of Hawaii experienced disbelief, shock, and terror of an imminent nuclear attack. Eventually, it was called off and explained as a miscommunication during a drill, but in that time of uncertainty, few citizens knew how to respond or where to go for shelter. Students at the University of Hawaii Mano campus reportedly headed for fallout shelters on campus, but the doors were locked. The communication systems became flooded with activity only adding to the confusion and the panic. One man actually suffered a heart attack after saying what he thought were his last goodbyes to his kids following the alert.
"Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."
GENERAL DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
More recent, flooding in Western Europe from record rainfall has taken towns completely by surprise with tragic results. Alerts from the European Flood Awareness System were sent to the right authorities, but the failure of those authorities to react and respond have cost at least 180 people their lives with more than 1,000 people unaccounted for to date. The most advanced early warning systems in the world can't mitigate for the destructive power of human complacency and ignorance.
One German resident affected by the flooding said, "I don't think anyone could have imagined something like this. No one was prepared." As extreme weather events become more frequent and more violent around the world, especially in areas where extreme weather is rare, the unimaginable is certainly possible.
Critical event management (#CEM) strategies and planning may be systematic for most types of crises because they almost always come with a level of uncertainty. This also means that response plans - from immediate, to restoration, through reconstruction - require enough flexibility to design for a plethora of potential outcomes. Even the basic CEM command and control planning includes:
Unified response with clear communications.
Dynamic task management with fluid role assignments.
Mobile response teams that can cross domains.
Executive vision, awareness, and reports.
It doesn't matter if you manage the public safety system of a U.S. state or the federal government, a large corporation with multiple locations around the world, or a small community neighborhood association of families. What often saves us from crisis is our ability to respond because we were prepared; because we practiced thorough strategic imagination, not just from the event, but for the threat to the systems on which our response depends.
In any case, we can count on our own crisis of #imagination (i.e. lack of). We should practice our powers of fiction for 'threat-testing' and how these critical events might jeopardize existing systems – inadequate communications and bandwidth, deteriorating public utilities, fragile economic communities, stressed social structures, overextended health facilities – as well as the systems we don't immediately think of, which are made more vulnerable for that very reason.
Because even a simple conversation about crisis, as hard as it may be, is a critical first step in preparedness. The next is putting our imaginations to work for the unimaginable monsters we haven't encountered yet.
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Editing & research provided by Maxine Morris.
