Imagine it is the middle of the month of August and it is hot. Really hot. People are seeking the cool however they can. This means turning up the air conditioning units and buying extra fans in efforts to keep homes and offices cool.

Flashback to August of 2003. It was hot and sticky. Particularly for those living in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and in Ontario, Canada. So hot and humid that air conditioning units were running at 100 per cent. Everyone was doing what they could to get and keep cool.

But then disaster struck. On August 14, 2003, the second largest blackout at the time hit the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and Ontario. This massive loss in power affected an estimated 50 million people in eight U.S. states and 10 million people in Ontario.

According to Reuters news service: “This was the largest power outage in North American history, with a total over 50 million people affected. President Bush called the blackout a "wake up call" and urged the modernization of antiquated electricity infrastructure.“

Communication Meltdown

To say that the sudden blackout and loss of power was a shock would be an understatement. In typical fashion most people assumed the power would return quickly. After a few quick phone calls, it was soon apparent that this wasn’t a localized blackout.

My office was essentially shut down. We didn’t have an emergency back-up system so we were all sent home. Now imagine what the roads were like – everyone was sent home. There was only one radio station in operation. Chaos reigned out. Without a reliable news source no one really knew what was going on.

The Real Impact

You might be wondering why both writing about an event that happened in 2003. Ancient history really – right? Well take a look at your thermometer and the temperatures the United States and parts of Canada are currently experiencing. Yes, it is hot! Now is the time to take the lessons from 2003 and really put them into action.

As you know a plan can make all the difference in succeeding through an unexpected disaster such as an energy meltdown and blackout. Lets take a look at some more details of this meltdown:

• Essential services were not able to operate in all areas
• Backup power generation was not reliable and failed in most areas
• Telephone systems were not reliable due to increased demand and left many circuits overloaded
• Water systems failed and many areas were in boil-water advisories
• Cellular service was not stable due to mobile networks being overloaded
• Businesses such as restaurants and grocery stores were literally giving away food – ice cream was melting and food could not be kept cool or safe

As you can likely imagine this energy meltdown of 2003 was certainly not the first nor will it be the last of its kind. In fact in recent years we are seeing more and more similar occurrences.

For example in January 2001, India was hit with a massive blackout that left 220 million people without power for 13 hours. Unfortunately for India blackouts are common – costing corporations millions of lost revenue and expenditures. And more recently in China, perhaps one of the worst blackouts happened in the winter months of January and February in 2008. This time it was snow storms that felled the energy systems – leaving millions of people stranded without electricity and water over Chinese New Year.

What all three of these blackouts shows us is the real cost of disasters. Lost revenue. Jeopardized safety of the public. A distrust in the infrastructure. The key is to learn from these experiences.

Lessons Learned?

So with this brief list of impacts and results of this 2003 blackout and other similar blackouts – what do you take from this? Essentially this emphasizes the extreme need to be prepared. A plan can really make a difference. With a plan you have:

• Reliable and up-to-date contact lists
• A system in place to continue operations
• Know how you’ll interact with vendors and customers
• What to do in the event of complete system failure

What this does is eliminates the chaos. And it was pure chaos in 2003 for people in the United States and eastern Canada. The roads were clogged. Phone networks were down. The radio stations couldn’t operate. People were left scrambling – unsure of what was going on and how long this would last.

Are You Prepared?

We won’t really know who has learned from the meltdown of 2003 until something similar happens again. So now is your chance to be proactive - in these hot summer months, think about how your company would react to a loss of power, a failure of your backup power system, no reliable phone systems and little to no information coming in and out.

The chances of such a blackout and energy meltdown happening again are slim. Or are they? How will you communicate with your staff, vendors, customers and the media? How will you maintain a presence of calm and control? How will your organization survive?

Communication Plans and Exercises - The Key to Your Success

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over my years in the business continuity and emergency management space, it’s that creating a communication plan is hard, and exercising those plans is even harder.  Companies often struggle with ensuring the right messages are sent to the right people during business impacting events.  The reasons communication can be so hard and ineffective include timeliness, content, poor response choices, and incomplete or incorrect targeting.  How companies react in difficult situations is critical to their reputation, and a good communication plan is important for reputation management.  Over the years, I’ve developed plans and exercises specifically to help companies develop a more effective communication strategy. 

Over the next few days, I’ll be posting a series of tips to ensure the effectiveness of your communication plans and exercises.  Here’s the first:

Create a Communication Matrix

A communication matrix is a simple and valuable tool that helps you map out who needs to be communicated to, who is responsible for that communication, and what vehicle you should use to communicate to them.  First, identify all of the stakeholders that you may need to communicate with after any type of incident.  Second, determine who the internal “owner” of that communication relationship is.  For example, HR typically owns communications to employees.  Lastly, specify what tools you’ll use to communicate to each group.  Is the website the best way to communicate to your clients, or is social media like Facebook and Twitter?  Do your employees need to be sent a text message, or a phone call?  Answering these questions will help you determine what tools to use. 

Here is a sample of what a simple matrix looks like:

In my next blog entry, I'll talk about communication templates...see you then!