When Disaster Happens Will Your Backup System Succeed?
I’m sure we all heard about the latest news out of Atlanta this past weekend. There was a power outage that lasted close to 12 hours that shut down airport operations and forced an evacuation to clear out the congestion. Travelers were left stranded with no power, no food, and no information from anyone.
So you might be thinking, “Why was there no backup power and why did everyone working at the airport seem so unprepared to handle this situation?” The situation occurred because a Georgia Power Substation had a fire that knocked out power in the airport. The smoke and fumes were so powerful that it took crews hours before they could even reach the site to begin making repairs. The fire apparently was able to take out the backup system as well, causing the power to the entire airport to be down significantly longer.
So a few questions we should be asking ourselves:
- Why was their backup system setup in a way that could be directly impacted by the primary issue that occurred?
- Another way to ask this question is, why wouldn’t they have taken steps to ensure a single disaster like an earthquake, tornado, fire, crash wouldn’t take out both the primary and backup systems?
- Why wasn’t a second substation located on the opposite side of the airport to mitigate that risk?
- Is YOUR backup fully redundant?
- In the event of something like this happening, why were the staff in the airports not prepared to help?
- There was no communication and no food, water, or anything. All the restaurants were shutdown with no power.
- What is your contingency plan in case all of your fail-safes… fail?
Although it didn’t appear to be planned at all, the fire department evacuated planes with movable stairs. Buses and other shuttles were lined up to move travelers out of the airport, MARTA transit moved passengers at no cost, and the Georgia World Congress Center opened for stranded travelers for an overnight stay. So I have to give credit to the crisis management for getting mobilized, but definitely an F- for planning ahead.
What would you do if your warehouse ran out of electricity for an entire day? Could you still ship out your vital client’s orders?
The funny thing about this situation, Chik-Fil-A who is always closed on Sundays, stepped up and delivered over 5,000 free meals! The only company not required to be at work that day somehow found a way to feed over 5,000 travelers. It’s highly likely they have plans to put into action when disaster strikes.