Boston held a “planned disaster” Monday

Amidst all the historical reenactments, Sox game (lookin’ good, boys!), and Boston Marathon, authorities also scheduled a major disaster drill in the Hub of the Universe Monday.

Whoa! Was that a case of bad planning, or what? With hundred of thousands of people already milling about, weren’t the officials, as it were, looking for a disaster?

Nope.

As an op-ed in Monday’s Boston Globe pointed out, state and local officials decided that the characteristics of the event, i.e., hundreds of thousands of people milling around, the need to coordinate among many municipalities, etc. would also be characteristic of a real disaster, and thus offered an opportunity to test policies and procedures that would have to be applied in such a terrorist attack or natural disaster.

Boston EMS Director Richard Serino termed the Marathon and other events such as the 4th of July concert on the Esplanade (or, quick dispersals after DC’s 4th of July fireworks on the Mall), “planned disasters,” which commentator Arnold Bogis calls:

“..safe, controlled environments that present ‘an opportunity to test some things you would never want to test in a real disaster.’”

Those factors to evaluate include testing new technologies, trying out new evacuation plans, and, perhaps most important IMHO, building relationships between public safety agencies and the private sector.

This and other “planned disasters” meet two of my prime tests of effective terrorism and disaster response:

Of course, disasters aren’t predictable, and require effective, ad hoc organization planning and organization.

However, thinking of communication devices and inter-agency cooperation as modules to choose between depending on actual circumstances can both speed decision making and reduce the fear of the unknown, because response plans will be built from elements we’re familiar with, rather than forcing us to learn and use an on-the-shelf, unfamiliar system such as the Emergency Alert System.

Bogis’ op-ed pointed out that the Marathon’s use of RFID chips on the runners’ shoes to track their locations (no more Rosie Ruiz incidents!) could be mimicked in a disaster as a way to quickly locate casualties and identify their conditions. Most important is the way “planned disasters” can build effective personal relations between authorities that can be tapped in a disaster, rather than requiring that they create these relationships de novo when flames are licking at the windows.

Yes, as we’ve seen in cases such as the Lower Manhattan evacuations after 9/11, you can cobble together responses among perfect strangers, but it stands to reason that if you’ve already built those relations in less-stressful situations, you can streamline things in an actual disaster. As the op-ed points out, the Marathon relationships that could also be helpful in a disaster also include 8 suburban towns, private ambulance companies, the BAA, hotels along the route, etc.

HOWEVER, I’ll bet you dollars to Dunkin’ Donuts that the “planned disaster” DIDN’T include authorities scanning and factoring in a number of citizen-based Web 2.0 inputs that could provide invaluable “wisdom of crowds” in a disaster, especially critical location-based, real-time situational awareness:

Until these exercises also include monitoring Web 2.0, people-generated content, they’ll be missing half the story, and half the potential benefit!

So, from the Oklahoma State Fair to the Cody Stampede to the Tunbridge World’s Fair, let 1,000 planned disasters bloom throughout the year (and make sure that Web 2.0 apps and devices are part of the mix!): we’ll both enjoy a more pleasant time at the events (and quicker ride home at night!), and be building a more effective terrorism and disaster response system on the cheap!