Before You Think Costs, Think Benefits

I don’t often post ballyhooing AT&T, Motorola and other huge, slow to react “big names”, but here’s a case where credit is certainly due.

…. the Texas Special Needs Evacuation Tracking System (SNETS), is the country’s first statewide citizen-evacuation system …  read the rest of the story about how the great state of Texas is taking the bull by the horns and using technology to protect citizens and save resources with RFID and GPS-tracked vehicles.

The emergency planning of most states consists of a small office on the sidelines, manned by a few dedicated folks who do “table top” exercises and regularly moan to the governor and legislature that they can’t do anything more without funding.

This is often true … because at the leadership and supervisory level much of our government leadership operates on the “If it happens, we’ll fix it” theory.  The only problem with that is, in the case of natural or man-made disasters, the question is never “if”, it is “when”.

Yes, in order to get something like this set up in advance you do need to spend some time and dollars.  You also need to exercise the system and keep it alive by regular simulations, complete with critiques and changes in procedures driven by “lessons learned” during testing.  But what is the outcome if you don’t make this initial investment?

• People die.  Got to be worth something to prevent this, no?  One need only look with sadness at the performance of FEMA and various state governments during Katrina and other disasters in recent memory.
• It costs more to fix thinks after they go wrong than it does to make them go right in during the process.  Do not fall into the trap of shortsightedness … focusing on this quarter’s returns and ignoring the long-term value.
• Taking action now will not only uncover problems you didn’t know about … it will show you hidden strengths and assets you didn’t know about either,

Try some disaster planning and see what happens … I bet the pluses will way outnumber the negatives … if you only get off the dime.

Hat’s off to the great state of Texas.  they may have inflicted the reigning Bush upon the world, but they are working hard to make up for their mistake.