Drill Baby Drill!

Let me first allay everyone's fears. This IS NOT a post about Sarah Palin!

As an employee of Alertus Technologies, I'm in the unique position to hear from clients shortly after an emergency event. I typically get an account of what happened, how they responded, and what went right and wrong. I typically don't have the opportunity to get an impression of an event from a third party.

This is an account of a couple of colleague's of mine, who were recently at a police involved shooting at an airport.

"We were sitting at our gate with headphones on, and all of the sudden started seeing people running by. We sat there for another minute or two, and waited to see if an announcement was going to be made. When we didn't hear anything we decided to follow the crowd, which was leaving the gates, and heading back out to the front of the airport. After standing around at the front of the airport, and asking everyone if they knew what was going on, we started to receive. info from news agencies on people's phones that there had been a shooting. We still hadn't heard anything from airport officials. Shortly after that, it sounded like some type of announcement was made over a PA system, but it was too loud to make out what was said. Slowly, we became aware of the circumstances of what had occurred, and found out that in a panic some people had run through security, and now the entire airport would have to be run back through. This whole event took place over about two hours with almost no direction from officials, and us almost completely in the dark about what was happening around us."

My point of this post is not to excoriate the team that had to react to this situation, but to emphasize the point of drilling, practicing, and refining your plan, to ensure the best response and outcome for all involved.

The question for you is...

Are you truly prepared, or do you just have a plan?