Resilient Infrastructure

During the government shutdown I mentioned that the Governor of Colorado has employed the National Guard to continue to restore critical infrastructure without the financial support of the federal government. The reason is that without these critical conduits, a number of communities in Colorado would remain cut off throughout the winter, exacerbating the damage done and potentially reframing the options families and municipalities have when they do get back to assess the damage. Frozen water will warp houses and blowout foundations-so the need for gaining access is critical to salvaging what's left in those communities.

And it got me thinking...when we talk about community preparedness, we don't talk about our nation's infrastructure which seemingly go hand-in-hand. Within the dept. of homeland security there is an entire office devoted to the protection of infrastructure but it's unclear (to me) who is responsible for it's maintenance and upkeep? Some Federal Agency? Is it the State's responsibility? And as I thought about it in the context of response and recovery, building in resilience and the issues of upkeep/maintenance are crucial.

But before we go further lets get on the same page as to what infrastructure is. My narrow-minded view limited infrastructure to: roads, bridges, and rail transport...but it turns out it, there's much more to it according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. Infrastructure ranges from: Aviation and Dams to Drinking Water, Energy, Hazardous Waste, Inland Waterways, Levees, Ports, and so much more.

To give you an idea of the enormity of the challenge associated with upkeep and maintenance, there are 600,000+ bridges in the US. and 1 in 9 of them is structurally deficient...and that's just bridges.

Given that we've defined infrastructure as basically everything that enables us to live the lives we're accustomed to--water from our faucets, goods in our stores, electricity at the ready, and schools to teach our children, how's all that infrastructure doing? Judging by recent history--not so good, remember The I-5 Skagit River Bridge Collapse in WA and the I-35W Mississippi Bridge Collapse? Of course that's only two events and bridge events at that, but when it comes to bridges...one is too many and given all the elements that makeup our infrastructure, any deficiency in one area will have an impact in others.

Since we've already determined that infrastructure is about much more than bridges, where do you go to better understand the current state of our infrastructure? You go to the Infrastructure Report Card put out by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Every 4 years the ASCE rates our infrastructure--this year, the US infrastructure received a D+ and the site above provides a very interactive way to why.

Regardless of whether you see the ASCE issuing this report as a massive conflict of interest or not, the fact remains that resilient infrastructure is an important building block to resilient communities. How will the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power, the utility overseeing the water infrastructure in Los Angeles, providing 3.9 million people drinking water through 11,000+kms of piping in a very seismically active area, deal with the service disruptions caused by the next big earthquake? Thinking through these types of scenarios and integrating innovation that will work to improve infrastructure resilience will ultimately deburden those responsible for its restoration during response/early recovery.

It's in our best interest to ensure that our "infrastructure" as broadly encompassing a word as it is, be as resilient and up to date as possible so that when they are tested by a disaster it can be up and running as quickly as possible and while we're making gains--we need to be doing better.

http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/a/documents/2013-Report-Card.pdf

The Waffle House Index and Business Continuity

There are a lot of interesting relationships out there that seem to have no connection at face value--however, if you dig deeper you find interesting connections. The guys over at www.freakonomics.com/ are really good at finding these connections if you want to learn more. Some examples: skirt length and economic health or the amount of bacon consumed and how fat I get.

However, given that we like to talk about disasters, I'm referring to Administrator Fugate's now famous Waffle House Index. Long story short, this "index" uses Waffle House as a measure of a disasters impact on a community and it comes in three tasty levels that determine severity:

• Green: Waffle House is open and serving a full menu = minor damage and minor impacts
• Yellow: Waffle House is open but serving a limited menu, usually meaning the use of generators to get food into stomachs based on a limited food supply = issues with infrastructure / access and major impacts
• Red: Waffle House is closed = not good, area is unsafe to return

If you've never had the good fortune of eating at a Waffle House, you should remedy that because you're doing your waistline and arteries a disservice. Background: located throughout much of the south, especially the gulf coast states, they are as ubiquitous as Starbucks and known for always being open, 24/7/365. The combination of their geography and their business model, to be open as quickly as possible should they have to close the doors, makes them the perfect litmus test to gauge the impacts of an event in an area. 

It's a good menu...

Which brings me to my point, resilience on a personal level is at the crux of community recovery--if people don't rebuild, there is no community to come back to. However, just as important but less talked about is business resilience. Waffle House makes keeping the doors open a priority, as a result they need to be prepared when disaster strikes given where many of them are located--it's almost become a part of their organizational culture by default. Given that fact, duplication of supply chains and the ability to source things locally in order to get the doors open and butts in the seats as quickly as possible, is part of owning/running a Waffle House franchise. Along with Waffle House, Lowe's, Walmart, and Home Depot all strive to maintain a similarly high standard post-disaster. Given that these giants of industry have solid continuity planning integrated into their organizational culture...why is it that those models and procedural know haven't trickled down to help prepare small to medium-sized enterprises (SME)? 

We talk about whole of community but with the focus being on the individual/family. We need to push the availability of resources for small and medium-sized business as well...groups like the Small Business Administration and the Economic Recovery Support Function are some help to SME's, but in today's world of millions of messages being thrown around, the importance of business preparedness is diluted or lost.

The only reason people were able to get their hash browns covered, smothered, and chunked 3 days after Irene went through the mid-atlantic region in 2011, was because the Waffle House puts an emphasis on being ready...how many other businesses can claim the same?