Crisis Ahead by Edward Segal

Author:Edward Segal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2020-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

But even when a mistake happens, do not dwell on it. It happens to even the best speakers. Learn from it and move on.

DO YOU SMELL SOMETHING?

Crisis Trigger: Gas Leaks

Category: Utility Companies

Country: United States

Company: Columbia Gas

Reality Check:

Millions of people depend on natural gas to help warm their homes and businesses, heat their water, and power their appliances. Unfortunately, some of the pipes that transport the gas to our homes and businesses may be prone to leaks and explosions. The leaks or the disasters they cause can create havoc for days or weeks.

What Happened:

Natural gas explosions in three Boston suburbs killed one person, injured dozens of others, and set at least 39 homes on fire.52

Edward’s Take:

In disasters such as this, public officials and organizations often work on parallel tracks to ensure that people are safe while trying to recover from the crisis as soon as possible.

Best Practice: Be realistic.

It’s important to set achievable and realistic goals and milestones to address and recover from a crisis. Some experts doubted that was the case when Columbia Gas announced that it would take them 60 days to replace 48 miles of pipelines that were impacted by the incident. “It’s [now] the end of September, and we’re conscious of the fact that we’re getting into the season where people are going to need their gas more than they do now,” Columbia Gas spokesperson Scott Ferson said.52

Ferson said the work would be completed “as quickly as is humanly possible” and “will be held to the same [quality] standards as if it were drawn out longer.”52

The Boston Globe reported that according to safety expert Bob Ackley of Gas Safety USA, the utility company’s timetable was “unrealistic and unfair to businesses and residents who will need to plan for the prospect of cold weather setting in before their heat returns. ‘People need to start making preparations for winter now,’ [Ackley] said.”52

“I questioned whether Columbia Gas had the resources to get the job done,” he later told me. “Organizations that do not set and meet realistic deadlines to address and recover from a crisis can inconvenience people—or worse.”52

Best Practice: Be prepared.

Having enough of the right resources is important when preparing for a possible crisis. “I don’t think that the utility company was ready for this disaster,” Ackley said. “How they responded—and the fact that the governor asked a different company to help with the immediate recovery efforts—did nothing to restore the public’s confidence in Columbia Gas.”52

Best Practice: Put things in perspective.

Columbia Gas noted in a news release that it was “in the midst of a multiyear program to modernize its gas distribution system and replace cast iron and bare steel pipeline systems across the state. Our commitment to accelerate that work in the Merrimack Valley [where the explosions occurred] while larger in scale than a typical modernization project, is necessary in light of recent events. We remain committed to the modernization of all of our pipeline systems.”52

INTOLERABLE

Crisis Trigger: Hate Speech

Categories: Government, Social Media

Continent: Europe

Organization: European Union

Reality Check:

Americans enjoy almost unlimited freedom of speech.

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