[MITIGATION] Why mitigation is more important that contigency planning
ourworld.compuserve.com
'Sent: Friday, April 24, 1998 7:25 AM
Subject: Mitigation First, Contingency Preparation Next
(LONG)
From: "Harlan Smith" <hwsmith.nowhere@cris.com>
Newsgroups: comp.software.year-2000
To: 'Multiple recipients of list cpsr-y2k.XOUT@cpsr.org'
Ian,
"Contingency preparedness" YES, but first LET'S CUT THE
PROBLEM DOWN TO MANAGEABLE PROPORTIONS.
I am not opposed to contingency planning, but developing a
Y2K contingency plan as a free-for-all with every individual,
organization, community, agency making a different set of
assumptions will be EXTREMELY INEFFICIENT. Regardless
of my high esteem for the "sentiments" you have expressed
on that topic, I contend that it is impractical, perhaps
grotesquely so, _unless done in a highly organized and
collaborative way. Such will be very difficult but I hope to
present ideas which will get us headed in that direction.
Now, I do _not want to replace "something" (contingency
preparedness) with "nothing" (no contingency preparedness)
but rather "something" with "something better".
Toward that, end I think that we need to make some
considerable effort at "mitigation" (selective remediation and
upgrades to reduce the probability of infrastructure collapse)
and less "remediation" (global, mindless, impossible task of
fixing everything).
Now this point is VERY IMPORTANT. If we can convince
ourselves that "mitigation efforts" will be successful for
portions of our infrastructure, then "contingency
preparedness" can focus on those parts of the infrastructure
where we have less confidence in the success of mitigation.
WE HAVE CUT THE PROBLEM DOWN TO A SIZE, that we
can perhaps deal with.
"Mitigation" reduces the likelihood of the failure of a portion of
our infrastructure. "Contingency Preparedness" is a fallback
for when a portion of the infrastructure does fail. We need a
very _astute _combination of _both for maximum
effectiveness and efficiency.
The amount of effort required to kick the butt of Niagara
Mohawk to provide reliable power is infinitesimal compared to
trying to figure out a contingency plan that would allow
people to live in a high-rise apartment building without,
electricity, water, sewage, etc. That would be almost an
impossible task. It means that if the core infrastructure fails,
people must _leave the cities and there's no place to house
and feed all those people.
My opinion is that, for the next few months, we should be
focused as a nation on "mitigation" (find and correct the weak
spots in our basic infrastructure) as opposed to "remediation"
(repair to maintain current functionality) but begin to ramp up
"Contingency Preparation" (provide backup capability to
compensate for failures with significant likelihood of
occurring).
The differences between these various approaches can
probably be best explained by examples, but succinctly I am
advocating the examination of our infrastructure to determine
what is absolutely necessary to sustain our population and
provide a post 2000 repair environment -- a "core
infrastructure" stripped to austerity, if you will.
Once this minimum configuration is identified, we should then
intensely focus massive resources on enhancing its Y2K
survivability. The "austere infrastructure" should be so
defined that it embodies a very robust repair/regeneration
capability that will allow us TO work outward from the
survivable "austere infrastructure" nucleus to repair other
elements of the total infrastructure that may not have
completely survived the Y2K transition interval (days, weeks,
months?)
I think what I am proposing tends to show us how to capitalize
on some several good ideas expressed by others.
1) If you have limited resources, how do you optimally apply
them to survive Y2K?
2) If you do a "Global Triage" (David Eddy idea), how do you
develop guidance for the execution of that triage?
3) If you have the services of a "Y2K Czar" (Ed Yardeni idea)
what actions should he emphasize?
4) Others, that are complementary to the above 3.
This kind of effort should involve myriad complementary
actions. The objective of these items is to select elements of
the existing infrastructure that can be configured into a much
less brittle "austere infrastructure". Some potential actions
that come to mind are:
(a) Operations Analysis effort to identify, configure and model
an "austere infrastructure" and explore methods of enhancing
its Y2K survivability.
(b) "Global Triage" to strip down to an "austere infrastructure"
which inherently has greater probability of Y2K survival than
the total infrastructure.
(c) Identify interdependencies in the "austere infrastructure"
that can perhaps be removed to make it more "Y2K
survivable". Modify the "austere infrastructure" to remove
these unnecessary interdependencies.
(d) Using the model, explore survivability enhancements,
such as upgrading to more reliable components, adding
redundancy, reconfiguration, reducing functionality to
necessary minimum. Emphasize robustness of critical support
utilities such as electric energy and telecommunications.
(e) Implement the stripped-down and reliability-enhanced
"austere infrastructure" and then test it for Y2K survivability
as possible and supplement the test data with continued
exercise of the model(s).
(f) Undertake an effort to implement contingency backups for
each critical element of the "austere infrastructure" to further
enhance the probability that the overall "austere
infrastructure" will survive the Y2K transition period.
(However long.)
(g) Expand the modeling effort to analyze the capability of the
"austere infrastructure" to form a robust base for repairing
and restoring elements of the overall infrastructure that may
_not survive the Y2K transition period intact.
What advantages does this approach have over other
proposals currently visible?
Advantage 1. Emphasizes application of intellectual
resources (operations analysis modeling) to optimize
probability of achieving goals.
Advantage 2. Capitalizes on good ideas expressed by others
such as "Global Triage" and "Y2K Czar"
Advantage 3. Highly-effective conservation of resources, by
tight focus on remediation and reliability enhancement of
limited set of infrastructure constituents.
Advantage 4. Several complementary features (minimal
complexity, redundancy, upgraded reliability of infrastructure
elements.)
Advantage 5. Highest probability of sustaining total
population and preserving repair base.
Advantage 6. Cuts the "contingency preparedness" problem
down to manageable proportions, as we will not have to
provide backup for failure of all elements of the infrastructure,
a clearly impossible task.
This approach is the antithesis of "individual survivalism" and
"safe haven alarmism".
I think I can demonstrate complete agreement with what
William Ullrich says by indicating my sentiments on this topic.
I am a regular visitor to news:comp.software.year-2000 where
I filter out a lot of very good information, while gritting my
teeth at being subjected to huge doses of "individual
survivalism" and "safe haven alarmism". I am vehemently
opposed to these ideas, but not to ideas of "community
preparedness" and "individual preparedness"
The reasons I strenuously object to the ideas of "individual
survivalism" and "safe haven alarmism" are as follows:
It focuses on abandonment of cities. Cities are not viable
without the utility, communication, transportation etc.
infrastructures remaining viable. A city without a very complex
supporting infrastructure cannot function as a city or perhaps
function to support even a small part of its normal population.
This then implies that huge populations must move from the
city to the country. While perhaps possible, this would be an
immense logistics challenge.
Without countrywide coordination, that could only be
accomplished by the Federal Government and a lot of intense
preparation, this concept could never work for the majority of
our population. Grass roots efforts, although worthy, will just
not move fast enough to cover more than a fraction of the
population.
It ignores the fact that our present populations depend on a
highly-computer-dependent "food generation" capability, that
would also have to be replaced with something very different,
also creating huge logistics problems. Possible but not likely.
It ignores the fact that if cities are abandoned and the
teaming hordes flee to the countryside, there will be no safe
haven anywhere in the continental US.
It ignores the fact that all of us, and particularly those with
serious medical problems, are very dependent on
sophisticated medical care and abandonment of our utility
infrastructure will pull the rug out from underneath our ability
to maintain the capability to provide this care.
It ignores the problem of providing medicines and drugs to
those dependent on them for survival and/or quality of life.
It does not provide a good recovery base in terms of utilities,
personnel and complete repair/remediation environment to
restore our infrastructure.
It prematurely focuses on "contingency measures" (which are
bordering on an OXYMORON with regard to Y2K) as
opposed to "mitigation" which is where almost all of our
energies should right now be concentrated.
Simply stated:
Remediation - repair it, so it will continue to function as it
does now. We don't have time to complete this project.
Mitigation - find weak spots and modify the infrastructure to
be less brittle and more resistant to failure. Provide
substitutes for elements of our infrastructure that are most
likely to fail. (FEMA equivalent -- move populations out of the
flood plane)
Contingency Preparation - develop backup capability that will
be used when the normal infrastructure breaks (FEMA
equivalent - feed, clothe, house people after they are flooded
out.)
It ignores the fact that we must maintain a robust economy
and military infrastructure to maintain protection from foreign
predators.
It ignores the fact that we have built a Pandora's Box of
nuclear, chemical and biological hazard sites and only the
presence of a vital infrastructure keeps the lid on that box.
We have set ourselves up for this and we are stuck with it.
We're locked into maintaining some good semblance of our
present infrastructure. Without precluding contingency
preparation, the majority of our energies should be focused
on "Mitigation" as that will be the easiest and most feasible
method of sustaining our population and providing a recovery
base to build back to our present infrastructure capabilities.
We could dispense with a lot of frills for 2 or 3 years or
however long it takes, but we can't turn our back on our
infrastructure. We need a well-orchestrated,
intensely-cooperative effort applied to "mitigation".
Fleeing to the countryside is not a viable solution for the
majority and likely not a solution for anyone.
Our intellectual leadership must lead us into an
well-organized and intensely-executed mitigation effort and
not advocate flight. It's just not an option.
I see large scale remediation effort and lots of "talk" about
contingency preparedness (which hasn't even been defined
for Y2K). I see no "intellectually-led mitigation" effort.
Let's wake up folks, what else can possibly meet our needs?
Mitigation First!, Contingency Preparedness Next!
Harlan |
