More Security Theater on the MBTA

[alexxkay]

Last night, on my ride home, I saw a bunch of postings up at the T sites, saying that there will be busing along part of the Red Line this Sunday morning, due to something I think they called an "Emergency Preparedness Exercise". I gather they're going to simulate some sort of emergency, and see how well various agencies respond. [irony]Because emergencies so often happen with 4 days warning, on a predictable schedule, and at a time when the system is relatively empty. Whether it's terrorists, medical emergencies, or mechanical failures, you can always expect them to happen when the system is at its least loaded, yep.[/irony]

It seems to me that this exercise is going to cost a lot of money and attention, and there is only one outcome which would actually be helpful. If this exercise shows that the agencies in question *can't* respond to a softball exercise like this, then we will have learned something important. But if they do a good job under these contrived circumstances, that gives us absolutely no assurance about their ability to deal with an *actual* emergency, unplanned, under a rush hour load. Whose bright idea was this, anyways?

Comments

[tamarinne.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I agree this is pointless. Consider: they can't have a surprise emergency rehearsal. Business would be disrupted, people would be delayed, chaos would ensue. Politicians would subsequently be voted out of office. :) But lots of other agencies do the same kind of thing - the Army, for example, does war games. Everyone knows the war games are coming, and moreover, everyone knows that nobody's actually going to be shot or blown up or what have you in the war game. Nonetheless, the solidiers and the commanders learn from the exercise, and apply those lessons in real combat situations.

I'm reading a book right now called "How to Make War" - it's very interesting, I recommend it. If I were to take away one thing from it, though, it would be this concept: that experience is perishable, and combat experience is highly perishable. I think that giving emergency responders experience at acting in an emergency, even it's a highly contrived and schedule emergency, is going to improve their performance in a real emergency.

:)

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

I think that giving emergency responders experience at acting in an emergency, even it's a highly contrived and schedule emergency, is going to improve their performance in a real emergency.

Improve, yes. But not, I think, to a point that is acceptable.

A lot of my thinking here is based on reading detailed reports of what went on in various Air Traffic Control rooms and National Defense Centers on 9/11. For way too long, everyone thought that a drill scheduled for somewhat later had somehow started early. Realization that it wasn't a drill left a lot of them paralyzed and panicked. Lots of things that were supposed to happen as part of contingency plans didn't, because they weren't actually in a state of constant readiness outside of scheduled drills. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, police and firemen reacted well because their jobs normally exposed them to plenty of actual emergencies; this one was different in scope, but their basic skills were well practiced. But those whose jobs didn't give them that sort of regular exercise outside of scheduled drills reacted overwhelmingly poorly.

Ever since then, I've been pretty strongly opposed to announcing drills in advance. As far as I can tell, what it mostly accomplishes is a false sense of security and readiness, one that isn't actually borne out under stress conditions.

[tamarinne.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that unannounced drills fix the problem you're concerned with, though. You're comparing air traffic controllers (who thought it was a drill for too long, and could conceivably think that whether they knew a drill was coming or not) to police and fire fighters (whose jobs regularly expose them to real life-and-death emergencies).

I do see your point - a surprise drill does come closer to simulating a real emergency than a scheduled drill - but it's still a pretty far cry off. And the logistics of scheduling a surprise drill on a large or city-wide scale are pretty daunting, especially when you consider that you'd have to keep doing it every so often to keep everyone fresh and make sure any new problems hadn't cropped up. Not to mention the fact that you run the risk of creating or aggravating real emergencies by disrupting the emergency response system with the drill.

I'm just not sure that the benefit of making a drill a surprise outweighs the economic and social cost of that drill. That doesn't mean I've got a better solution, mind you. :) Perhaps smaller drills on a surprise basis, larger drills on a scheduled basis? I don't know.