Last week, I had my fingers crossed that the New Orleans area would be spared any damage by Isaac. As we all know, in BCP, crossing your fingers and hoping for the best is very unlikely to yield a positive outc
ome. Last week was no exception. Many of the parishes bordering downtown New Orleans were hit hard. Flooding in at least two parishes was said to be worse than flooding during Katrina. In many areas, water exceeded 10 feet, yikes!
As an instructor for DRI International, I have the distinct honor and privilege of meeting many of you in the classroom. As we pour through the material in preparation for the qualifying exam for certification, we discuss reality. We talk about real life disasters, understanding the risks, putting meaningful controls in place to minimize the impact, and, ultimately, we try to understand the impacts to people and business. In class, we talk about developing viable strategies and documenting plans. We also talk about exercising and testing our plans, and we cite real life experiences and personal stories about how we fared in responding to disasters. We always talk about the outage events going on real-time while we sit in the classroom. We recognize that the work we do isn’t just theoretical mumbo jumbo. It’s real.
I am proud to say that DRI has wonderful teachers working hard to educate business continuity planners across the globe. We have solid work experience and are able to translate classroom course-ware into reality for our students. We, the instructors, learn much from you all as well, and for that I am grateful. At each course I lead, we talk about conferences, professional associations, and opportunities to help in our communities and around the globe. Why? Well, it’s because we should never stop trying to learn or trying to help.
With that thought in mind, and with outages and disasters occurring with an alarming rate, I encourage you to be vigilant, committed, and passionate about the work we do and the help we can offer our families, companies, communities, and our neighbors. To ensure your skills stay current, join your local professional BCP organizations, attend a conference, and volunteer wherever possible and appropriate.
Did I mention Philadelphia yet? Mark your calendars for June 4-7, 2013 and join us in Philadelphia, PA, for DRI2013, our second annual conference and exhibition. Expect to meet new people, learn new ideas and concepts, have some fun, and do some volunteer work. It’s for the betterment of all of us. And be sure to take a peek at Ready Philadelphiahttp://oem.readyphiladelphia.org/Readyto get an idea about how the city of Philadelphia informs its residents on preparedness.
Next week we will talk about the food of Philadelphia. Have a great week!
All the best,
Clyde
Director of Volunteerism and Vice President
cberger@driif.org