Businesses in Cascadia - CREW

After the 9-11 bombings in New York, a book was published that showed how one manager hadtaken it upon himself to develop an evacuation plan for his building. This plan saved a lot oflives when the bombing occurred.If we think all businesses should have these plans, it really must be legislated.Japan’s population is trained to respond to an emergency tone (transmitted via T.V. and phone)that precedes warnings and other emergency announcements. It might be a good idea toreintroduce this here.EARTHQUAKE SCENARIOS AS TOOLSWould having disaster scenarios at your fingertips be of value to you? For example, NaturalResources Canada could create a disaster scenario library to help people facilitate discussionsor perform analyses. The goal would be to make these the best models possible: that is, the mostrealistic.Yes, this would be a very valuable tool for discussing and presenting on seismic risk. If this isput together by Natural Resources Canada, it would also enhance the credibility of theinformation we use and present.SOCIAL MEDIAThe importance of social media should be emphasized: In Japan, someone created an app to takereadings of nuclear radiation levels. Everyone downloaded this app; it told them to buy a $20device at the hardware store, use it to take measurements, and then input their data to the app.The coverage was more widespread, localized, and timely than the information being distributedby the government. By creating new app tools, we as a group could facilitate a useful interfacebetween people on the ground and scientists. Also, this would be something popular that peoplecan take up and run with. ShakeOut is successful at least in part because it was well designed andwell thought out in this respect—it emerged as something people could just take up and run with.MAKING USE OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCESOur challenge is that we’re trying to get people to take seriously something that most have notexperienced personally. We might have more success communicating with people here if we usestories of people’s real experiences.You won’t get organizations prepared if you don’t get individuals and families prepared. We alsoneed to find an individual advocate within each business or organization—someone who haspersonal experience that motivates.42 | CREW Business Roundtables