For more than five years I was responsible for the Security of a big bank. One of the responsibilities of Security is Disaster Planning.
Disaster Planning is very easy until you want to implement the disaster plan. You just sit down with a small group of creative people and imagine everything that could happen to your company. You have be to as disastrious as you can be.
When we performed our first Disaster Planning we asked the managers of the company to respond to every “Act of God” we could imagine.
Soon we discovered that some questions could not be answered. They could not be answered because there was no data available or there was no “decision-structure (+ priorities)” that could decide what to do.
The end of our first phase generated a lot of awareness and action. We even knew what would happen to the bank when the biggest disaster (a complete destruction of the computer centre) would occur. The answer was simple. The bank would go broke within 24 hours!
The next step was to take preventive measures. Some of them where easy to implement. The realization of a back-up computer center was very expensive even if we priotized the use of the centre to the bare minimum.
Suddenly all the disasters we imagined “would never occur” or could occur but with a very very low chance. We were Just Imagining.
At the end we convinced the top management to take measure and we created a full back-up center. The load was divided between the old and the new center and the data was copied at both places.
Soon after the back-up center was finished an airplane crashed very close to the data-center.
I am telling this short story to open up your Awareness to another level of Disaster Planning.
I want to do it on the level of planet Earth.
Have you ever imagined what disasters could happen to our planet and what we/you would do if this really happened?
What would it be to be without electricity, without heating, water, food, a doctor, medicine, a car, a telephone, work?
What would it be like when many people were looting and you have to defend yourself with weapons to survive?
What would it be like when there is no police or army to help you and you have to do it on your own?
Have you ever imagined what decision-structure and priorities we would need to handle this?
Any idea about the amount of money involved?
Do you know where we can build a Back-up Earth?
The Moon?
Mars?
Now I Know what NASA is Really Doing!
Do we have enough time (and budget and technology and ..) to save everybody when it happens?
I hope so. If not we have to decide who will stay! Perhaps we have to Organize a Lottery!
As a back-up strategy I advice you to do a Survival Training and build a back-up centre Yourself on a place on the Earth that will not be hit by “the disaster”!
Any Idea Where to GO?
Any Idea What to Look for to know when it Starts?
Perhaps A Global Warming of the Earth, Strange Weather, a Food Shortage, a Worldwide Financial Crisis or April 2010?
I Know where to Go, but If I tell you the place Everybody would Go there when it Really Happens!
I Think I Keep it a Secret.
