Avoiding the next 21st century technology disaster: Mark Reilly, Crisis and Consequence Expert talks minimises the impact of the evolving crises
Iain Hoey
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By Mark Reilly, Crisis and Consequence Expert
The next 12 months will bring new challenges for designers, engineers and first responders regarding fire and emergency response across our modern communities, let alone the existing issues in developing communities.
The design and construction of low, medium, and tall buildings from new building materials and construction techniques is already a problem when the designers, architects and developers are driven to reduce costs to increase profits.
Currently a risk management approach is used to reduce risk and deal with new and evolving technologies, whether they be in transport, building or power storage.
That is, industry and the community assess the potential threats to adopt ways to avoid the threat posed by the risk.
This ‘risk management’ reactionary approach assumes the threat will occur and it will be dealt with when it occurs.
But what if that risk is catastrophic in nature if the risk is realised, and will lead to loss of life, significant disruption to communities and other public safety impacts?
A crisis management approach is proactive and involves managing threats ‘before’ an issue develops by identifying potential approaches to dealing with the myriad of factors that come together that develop into a crisis.
The preplanning process minimises the impact of the evolving crisis by implementing pre-identified skills and techniques to reduce the seriousness of the incident, reducing its impact on the organisation, the facility and the community.
For example, a crisis management approach to lithium-ion battery powered transportation would remove them from internal storage in residential structures, particularly in high rise residential accommodation or areas with restricted access and egress like underground car parks, therefore eliminating the risk.
A lithium-ion EV fire in an underground car park would be catastrophic to the building structure as well as generating huge amounts of toxic smoke that will obscure evacuation routes and make rescue extremely dangerous for first responders and could potentially lead to significant loss of life and casualties for building residents.
Industry and first response agencies need to be proactive at identifying emerging technologies so that management solutions are in place before issues and incidents occur.
A crisis management approach to emerging technologies such as Sodium Storage Batteries will ensure the adoption of this technology is done so with the consideration of the consequences of a catastrophic incident prior to the incident occurring.
This will ensure new technologies can be adopted safely rather than turning up on the evening news channels as “the next 21st century technology disaster”!
About the IFSJ Influencer
With over 40 years’ experience as a frontline Fire Officer, Incident Commander and Crisis and Consequence Manager in fire and emergency response operations nationally in Australia and across the Pacific and Americas, Mark Reilly has extensive experience training and leading firefighters in emergency and disaster recovery operations.
Mark has been a Member of the Institution of Fire Engineers for over 30 years and has served as the President of the Institution of Fire Engineers Australia.
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