It's A Disaster!

For those of us that live in the USA or Canada, late December of 2022 was a time period that will not be forgotten anytime soon.?The memory will likely be especially painful for many customers of various airlines, bus companies and passenger rail organizations.

What Happened?

There was an historic winter storm that included blizzards, high winds, record amounts of snowfall, or record cold temperatures across the majority of the United States and parts of Canada.?This led to:

• More than 15,000 flight cancellations which cascaded into customers being stranded in various locations at home and abroad;
• Postponed ‘destiny weddings’ with some non-refundable resort bookings;
• A cargo train derailment which led to a passenger train with hundreds of passengers being stranded for approximately 20 hours which cascaded into overflowing toilets and food shortages;
• Road closures and crashes.?Some where people were trapped and died in their automobiles;
• The extreme cold caused a luggage belt to break which caused luggage to be delayed and / or misplaced at Pearson International Airport.?Some passengers reported getting to their destination without their clothes and medications while others spent days (and money for parking) trying to find the luggage they did return home with;
• Power outages impacting more that seven million households;
• An estimated cost of damage in excess of US$5 billion; and,
• Confirmed direct fatalities of more than 100 people and injuries to thousands more.?

Several days prior to the storm’s formation, the weather services in Canada and the USA were warning of the severe potential of the storm and potential impacts.?President Biden and several state govenors warned Americans directly that this was a serious threat and to be prepared.?

Various Canadian politicians and Environment Canada took to social media and television stating that this could have a huge impact on several regions and noted a few areas that were specifically in the path of the heaviest snowfall and potential damage.?Those regions included the airports that serviced the airlines that cancelled almost all of their flights and where the train derailment occurred which led to the passenger’s on a train being stranded.

?What Didn’t Happen?

While we can’t be specific about what various people did, we do have a good handle on what various organizations did not do.?Generally speaking, they did not have an adequate Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP).?That’s assuming they had any plan at all.

• Someone didn’t do a proper risk assessment of the potential impact of a forecasted situation.?DRP includes quantification and qualification of risk.
• Passenger complaints were primarily based on the lack of communication from almost every airline, bus company and train organization.?DRP includes various levels of communication plans and methods.
• A month later, complaints regarding the lack of refunds and / or future travel credits abound.?DRP includes a customer satisfaction / retention plan.
• One of those people injured and hospitalized during the storm had knowledge that was integral to the operations management of one of the transportation organizations.?The inability to communicate with this person caused significant delay in responding to some situations.?DRP includes a Human Resource risk assessment and recovery plan.

?What Needs to Happen?

You’re likely thinking it’s obvious.?Organizations need to have Disaster Recovery Plans.?There are several types of plans I’ve mentioned (Communications, Customer Focus, Operations, and Human Resources) but several that I haven’t including Information Technology, Suppliers, Regulatory and others. There are also short-term DRP situations including projects such as the selection and implementation of an ERP solution.

The plan for the organization needs to be a living document.?I’ve seen some that get documented and filed somewhere never to be seen again until a disaster hits.?By then, the people that created the plan have ‘moved on’ and the plan is almost useless (assuming someone knows where it is).?Therefore, there are two processes that should be part of the plan:

1.????There’s a formal review by a group of people that understand disaster recovery at each fiscal or calendar year end.?This is signed off by the President / CEO of the organization within 90 days of the time of review; and,

2.????There is a process by which a stakeholder can advise the DRP group of a potential risk situation.?That process initiation then initiates a review within a specified timeframe which results in either an update to the relevant DRP or documentation regarding the decision not to update the DRP.

Both of these processes can be facilitated by the use of Business Process Automation technology and, by using this technology, the organization has the ability to assure stakeholders that there are controls and plans in place for risk management and that those risks and plans are being reviewed on a regular basis.

One more thought here…Do you have a personal and / or family-based DRP?

?Murphy’s Law

If you don’t think a disaster can happen to you or your organization, Murphy’s Law states: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong". Some people add this to the end: "...and at the worst possible time."