May 2011

May 20, 2011

Crisis Management: The Inevitability of the Unlikely

Mary Poppins had it right: Impossible things are happening every day. Or at the least, extremely improbable things are happening all around us. In these uncertain times, the unexpected has become the status quo, and we go through our days knowing that the next super-catastrophe might be just around the corner. We’re not just dealing with fires and floods — we’re at risk from terrorism, pandemic disease, mega-earthquakes, tsunamis, super-sized volcanic eruptions, or perhaps the decade’s largest industrial accident, just to name a few.

It’s easy to ignore the threat of a million-to-one event such as a terrorist attack, but with an uncounted number of potential catastrophes in the making every day, the only certainty is that, sooner or later, another catastrophe will strike.…