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Comment by William R. Cumming

May 8, 2010 @ 12:35 pm

Ah yes great post! Why? Most HS and EM decisions are made on too short a period of record. Specifically and primarily the last 500 years since W.Hemisphere events began to impact the world.

Comment by Mark Chubb

May 8, 2010 @ 9:50 pm

Phil, I hope you did not understand my comments last week as an endorsement of the notion that a catastrophe should be defined ex post facto as a “cascading systems failure obliterating means of command, control, or coordination.” If you did, I can understand why you would worry about the tautological implications of such a statement and the associated reasoning.

What I was trying to say was far simpler and focused on predicting or forecasting the capacity of the different response strategies to satisfy pre hoc expectations. Most everyday, run-of-the-mill emergencies respond well to command/control strategies because they fit within existing well-defined response routines. They involve little ambiguity, little competition for resources or outcomes, and as such require little creativity.

Bigger events that involves multiple responders almost always require coordination, if not to manage competition for resources then to manage the competition over agenda setting as it relates to preferred outcomes. The more complex the incident, the scarcer the resources, or the more obscure the outcomes, the harder it is to gain any agreement on such matters.

As such, I assume a catastrophe involves a degree of complexity (not complication) that overwhelms routines and imposes a degree of ambiguity and competition on the participants that requires them to negotiate and cooperate (share means, ends, or both) to achieve an outcome that meets expectations. This often involves a degree of creativity on the part of the participants.

The longer it takes leaders, responders and the public to achieve a modicum of cooperation, the harder it is to move from response to recovery. Without collaboration (a shared commitment to managing means and ends collectively as opposed to means or ends alone) recovery is inhibited or delayed.

If there is an element of tautology here it is that my approach suggests that the cascade continues indefinitely, quite possibly until social collapse occurs, until and unless collaboration emerges. But as I see it, this is more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than anything else.

Comment by Philip J. Palin

May 9, 2010 @ 3:03 am

Mark:

Thanks for the reinforcement. My use of coordination in the Antioch post was not aimed at your use of coooperation/coordination/collaboration. I think you and I are on the same page (even if potentially on different paragraphs). But we are in the clear minority.

The vast majority of colleagues tend to adopt some version of the triple-trouble or systems-collapse explanations. Therefore their solutions tend to focus on strengthening command-and-control (or sometimes coordination) capabilities.

You and I are focused much more on a set of what many of our colleagues, with some skepticism, see as soft-skills. You and I would probably prefer to characterize them as resilient or agile skills.

For me — and I am guessing for you — ambiguity is a persistent characteristic of life, and can be a beautiful thing. I was encouraged at graduation from college, to “embrace ambiguity.” Many of our colleagues perceive ambiguity as the enemy. I expect we are each right and wrong depending on the context. But then, I am (usually) comfortable with ambiguity.

In regard to Antioch, however, I was actually trying to make my (our?) definition of catastophe less ambiguous. I previously set out five characteristics of catastrophe: scope, scale,secondary effects, surprise, and social interpretation. Here I am offering a sixth: cumulative effect or, straining to stay with an S: snowballing.

Comment by Mark Chubb

May 9, 2010 @ 12:44 pm

Thanks, Phil, for that clarification. We do indeed remain on the page. And, yes, I do agree with you addition of cumulative effect to the previously stated five characteristics.

I can think of many other classic examples, where either slowness or failure to learn from previous events how to come together as a community, not to solve our problems but to resolve our differences, had a catastrophic effect on the survival of a community.

I think it was Bill Cumming who cited Jared Diamond’s work in any earlier comment. Diamond’s approach is a bit different from ours (he seemed more concerned with chronic conditions that lead to societal collapse), but certainly illustrates the cumulative effect on societies of failing to learn new ways of working to address their relationships with one another and their environment.

Comment by Citizen Joe

May 10, 2010 @ 5:21 am

Unfortunately, in this 21st century, catastrophic events abound as professional politicians have little regard for those taxpayers “entrusting” them by precious vote to do the job, right the wrongs…Politicians unable to read the pages of proposed laws before adopting, understanding or even truly caring about the ramifications of such ineptness….

We as a nation are not only enveloped in catastrophe, we are paralyzed and while even my friend Roubini has some optimistic outlook, unfortunately because of the lack in resiliency, the ability to compromise, a series of economic events from local, state, national and international will lead to massive economic failure and guess what, we have no real federal, state or local comprehensive response to help our good populace.

In fact, here in Boston, a major water main break saw bottled water flying off the supermarket shelf and within a few hours, bottled water at a premium. Imagine, only a few day challenge and no bottled water remaining as folks were buying eight and ten cases giving little care for the next guy standing there without even one bottle!

The real catastrophe is mankind. The arrogant greed, the accolades and glow of credential, the selfish nature as global population reaches 7 billion, well, even the central bankers knowingly choose to print “fiat” federal reserve notes, massive IOU’s written to the Chinese, a catastrophic $12trillion bankrupt nation, the Europeans bailing out those that will never be able to reel in debt and spending as people bear arms and revolt…this is catastrophe and you Mr. President, since taking office, you have spent so much money in your first term and only term spiralling massive debt and soon interest payments at a point of providing only a catastrophic scenario!

Outsourcing America in every way has been the catasttrophe and unfortunately the beginning of war immersing nation after nation causing massive despair will be the end result of partisan and blantant disregard for budget, Constitution and neighbor….

God Bless America!

Christopher Tingus
Citizen Joe
Main Street USA
chris.tingus@gmail.com

Comment by William R. Cumming

May 11, 2010 @ 5:41 pm

All choices made by humans are bounded by their context and that includes knowledge and geography and history. Choice of the lesser of two or more evils is often the real context for the leadership of the human race. Just that concurrence of events and sometimes their various permutations and combinations leads to strange outcomes. Perhaps the saying should be not that chance favors the prepared mind but that chance favors the flexible thinking of those without preconcieved notions of what must occur. tnyaire