How did businesses fare from the Nisqually earthquake, what lessons were learned from the event, and most importantly what actions are being taken? These were the questions that drove the Cascadia Regional Earthquake Workgroup (CREW) conference held last November 27th and 28th. About ½ of the 150 who attended were from the Puget Sound greater business community. The others where equally split between the scientific, engineering and government emergency management disciplines. Several themes emerged from the conference that helps answer these questions.

(Photo by Michael Lienau of Global Network Productions)

1. The Nisqually earthquake was not "the big one", but was what people in the region have come to expect every 30 years or so. 2. The risk reduction actions being taken by the business community appear to be the result of increased worry from the sum total of the many events that have recently affected the region. 3. Those business risk reduction programs that were successful were balanced and comprehensive taking advantage of all phases of emergency management. 4. Partnering may offer opportunities to reduce vulnerabilities that are otherwise outside of a business's control. CREW is a coalition of private and public representatives working together to improve the ability of the Cascadia Region communities to reduce the effects of earthquake events. The mix of attendees was in harmony with CREW's mission.

1. This was not "the big one."

This Nisqually earthquake occurred on Februarys 28th at 10:54 AM, was a 6.8 magnitude event that occurred 52 km below the surface in the Benioff Intraslab Zone. Damage was light to moderate. And, as Craig Weaver from the USGS said and others supported, including Ron Sims County Executive, the Nisqually earthquake was a repeat of the '49 and '65 earthquakes and above all, it must be understood that it was not "the big one." The Cascadia region is at risk from a Juan de Fuca plate event as well as crustal events emanating from several known fault systems.

Glen Woodbury, Director of the Washington State Emergency Management Division, presented` information on the earthquake, illustrating that the impact included casualties, and damage to homes, businesses, lifelines, transportation, communications and government. The greatest losses were to infrastructure and non-structural elements of buildings with chimney failures being the most common damage to homes.

John Conrad, Assistant Secretary with the Washington Department of Transportation, Don Ballantyne, ABS consulting, and Bill Heubach of the Seattle Public Utilities emphasized that Nisqually caused damage but that the transportation system remained functional. But these presenters concurred that the system will remain extremely vulnerable for some time and that this earthquake is not an indicator that the systems will survive a significant crustal or subduction zone event.

Tim Walsh of the Washington DNR and Linda Noson, consultant, presented a scenario of a Cascadia event that according to a HAZUS model would result in 10s of times the damage experienced by a Nisqually type event. Maps of these scenarios will be available on the CREW web site this spring and through the University of Washington Nisqually Clearinghouse (for information contact Bill Steele at bill@geophys.washington.edu)

2. The compounding effect reaching a critical mass.

Did those attending this conference do so because they were concerned about future earthquakes, or had they reached some worry threshold?

People take action, such as mitigation, when they are worried according to Jacqueline Meszaros, University of Washington professor. I assume this also means the action of attending the CREW conference. Professor Meszaros also said in her presentation that worry is not entirely an effect of experience.

It was difficult to assess whether this moderate earthquake had a lulling effect (We did okay so why worry) or was a call to action. However, it probably doesn't make any difference when seen within the context of other recent events. During the past few years, the region's contingency planning community has had much to worry about and as a result there has been a heightened interest in how to apply the lessons learned from this real event. Over the past couple of years we have been besieged by the World Trade Organization and Mardi Gras civil disturbances, eco-terrorist attack on a University of Washington facilities and the economic fallout to the airplane industry from the September 11th events.

I can only assume that a key motivating force for many who came to this conference was worry created as a collective response to the sum total of these many events.

Unfortunately we did not ask those attending, why they came. However from conversations I had at the conference and with those registering, it appears that most were interested in understanding the lessons learned from the Nisqually earthquake in order to assess its applicability to other events.

3. The importance of a holistic approach.

Most of us say, and believe, that as emergency managers, contingency planners, or business resumption planners, we have as our goal to mitigate what we can, prepare for that which we cannot mitigate, respond where we cannot prepare, and build mitigation into the recovery process wherever possible -- "Mitigation" being the cornerstone of emergency management.

Mitigation concepts were woven into most presentations. However, there lies the challenge in that mitigation is hazards specific and businesses, especially small ones, cannot mitigate for every hazard. Also, as many presenters emphasized, mitigating for external vulnerabilities is often outside of their control. Case study after case study voiced the need for mitigation within the context of a balanced risk reduction approach taking advantage of opportunities within all phases of emergency management. .

Preparedness: Practiced preparedness measures saved lives and reduced adverse business impacts - nothing "earth shaking" here; however, of great importance was the incorporation of an institution's culture within the planning process, the empowerment of employees, and partnering with the larger community.

It's a principle of contingency planners to have a business continuity plan that addresses common impacts from disasters-the cause may be irrelevant. However as Wendy Freitag of Washington Mutual said in her presentation, it is equally important that a plan embrace the culture of the organization.

This point was emphasized by the presentations of representatives from two very different cultures - The Boeing Company and the University of Washington.

The University of Washington had over a million dollars in non-structural damage directly caused by the Nisqually Earthquake and they are accordingly instituting extensive mitigation measures. In contrast, they suffered many times this amount when the University Horticulture Center was destroyed this past May. As described by Vice Provost, Harlan Patterson, their challenge is to rebuild the facility and institute a preparedness plan within the context of a culture that demands openness, access and a free exchange of information. On balance, consider the high-tech community where the culture demands the protection of intellectual property.

The "Boeing" company has evolved a different culture. Anyone who knows a Boeing airplane worker understands that they love to work on airplanes and have wonder for the product they produce. It should not be a surprise therefore that Ross Bogue, Boeing Vice President, during his luncheon address, cited the heroic actions of Boeing employees instrumental in reducing loss. This was followed in importance by the company's effort in preparedness planning and in its partnering with the larger community. In sharp contrast, the University of Washington has a preparedness policy that attempts to discourage students from taking aggressive heroic actions following disasters, incorporating experience that shows that for similar young inexperienced populations, there could very easily be greater injury to the rescuers that the actual victims

Bogue described how within minutes, Boeing activated 8 Emergency Operations Centers and these centers were fully operational and staffed in 45 minutes. Emergency generators kicked in and within 42 seconds, the company's Computing Emergency Response Center transferred computing control to a backup center in Wichita, Kansas. But he was most excited when he told of how individuals stayed behind to ensure that the gas was shut off within minutes and water within the first half hour. He told of how an overhead crane operator remained at his post until the fin of a large commercial aircraft was no longer a hazard thereby saving lives and millions of dollars in product.

It is important to note that the Nisqually earthquake caused damage to the Boeing plant but that product orders were not affected and no product delivery was delayed. Like Starbucks, if you were a customer and you hadn't read the press you wouldn't know Boeing had damage. Such was not the case after the 9/11 attacks, which had no direct physical impact on any of Boeing's facilities.

Response: Most of the response actions that proved successful for the Nisqually earthquake would have worked well for a wide range of hazard related incidents, including a localized terrorist attack

The Starbucks headquarters occupies a retrofitted Seattle historic landmark. The earthquake caused very little structural damage to this facility. In the Starbuck's presentation, Rick Arthur, Vice President, described how the building still had to be vacated because of the failure of non-structural elements principally light fixtures and a broken water pipe. Many business resumption actions were undertaken (e.g. staff was relocated to a temporary facility, data was backed up) however and most importantly, (if you didn't live in Seattle and hadn't seen some rubble alongside the Starbuck's trademark "Sirens" in the local press) you wouldn't have known that this coffee giant's headquarters had been abandoned. Their business remained uninterrupted. Their use of classic contingency planning measures would have helped save the business for a wide range of hazards including a local terrorist attack.

The Washington State Adjutant General, Timothy Lowenberg, reinforced the theme during his lunch address, that we must know what to do at all levels - individual, home, work environment, region, state and as a nation.

Recovery: Outside of losses from nonstructural failures, the recovery of small businesses was stifled as much by externalities as by failures within their own facility. Large companies with significant markets outside of the Region did not suffer a loss in business from the earthquake. It took a much more dramatic external event, the World Trade Center attack, to impact our larger businesses.

Stephanie Chang in a survey of 107 businesses located in the older commercial areas near Seattle's downtown found that the most often noted impact was not damage but a loss in customer base. The greatest types of problems encountered were caused by factors external to business operations such as loss in customer base, street closure, media perception, loss of parking and ongoing city repairs in the area.

These figures were given a face at the Conference with the presentation by Terry Wakefield, owner of the Seattle Chocolate Company. The Seattle Chocolate Co. suffered structural and non-structural damage to their building, but of supreme importance was the loss of power that threatened several large containers filled with precious chocolate. In this very competitive industry, a business must retain the confidence of employees, suppliers, customers and bankers. They must have a product and be able to get that product to their customers. The factory did obtain auxiliary power in time to have a product to deliver, but if they hadn't, the long-term loss in customer base could have been terminal. The Company has since relocated to a new building outside of the affected area and created redundancy for their critical systems.

As a side note, there seems to be a trend emerging where businesses are reducing risk by relocating key business units to satellite offices or creating "mirrored" operations at some distance from their home office. From a national perspective, this may be having the effect of redistributing investment dollars.

John Nelson of the Washington Insurance Council presented insurance tools as elements of a comprehensive risk reduction process.

Mitigation: Mitigation measures taken by individual businesses worked, and they worked best, when combined with more traditional business resumption practices

This was true for non-structural mitigation as Barry McDonnell, Contingency Planners and Recovery Managers (CPARM), stated in his presentation. McDonnell interviewed over 100 businesses and captured what worked and what didn't. His report cites many very practical examples that can be viewed on our CREW Web site (www.CREW.org) and therefore need not be outlined here. The success of non-structural mitigation measures was mentioned often.

David Swanson (Washington Association of Structural Engineers) told of the advantages of performance-based design and encouraged business owners to view the concept as a tool for their use, and to follow the lead of The Boeing Corporation and Starbucks.

A major theme of the conference was that mitigation worked where implemented and where not complicated by external factors. A supporting theme that will be addressed in the following discussion was that there appears a missed opportunity in that mitigation should be expanded through partnerships, to include external vulnerabilities.

4. Partnering is vital in business resumption planning.

As previously mentioned, much is outside of the control of a given businesses. This emphasizes the need for partnering and partnerships.

Stephanie Chang raised the problem when she stated that her business survey indicated that the greatest types of problems encountered were caused by factors external to business operations such as loss in customer base, street closure, media perception, loss of parking and ongoing city repairs in the area.

Chang was talking about small business, however Ross Bogue of The Boeing Company suggested an approach, although at a different scale, to address this problems when he discussed the success The Boeing Company has achieved in reducing risk by partnering with the larger community.

As Boeing could not mitigate against the external impacts of the World Trade Center attacks, many small businesses could not mitigate against failures in their surrounding environment. For most businesses their limited sphere of influence made them dependant on the traditional preparedness, response, and recovery tools.

Small service businesses located in Pioneer Square (Seattle's historic district) that occupied retrofitted buildings, found their businesses closed because the debris from other non-retrofitted structures prevented customer access. A large corporation like The Boeing Company appears to be different in scale only. Having spent millions on mitigation, The Boeing Company survived the earthquake with no loss in business only to find themselves in need of letting go 10s of thousands of employees because of an event in New York that had absolutely no affect on any building or system within any of the Boeing facilities.

This suggests the need for businesses to consider a much wider range of vulnerabilities to functions critical to their business -- To look to their neighborhood, city and even region and to develop partnerships, mutual aid agreements, and neighborhood wide mitigation efforts.

Jim Mullen, Director of Seattle Emergency Management, stated that the city's is a very strong proponent of the need for, and success of, partnerships at all levels. Ines Pearce, Coordinator of the Seattle Project Impact Program cited numerous examples of how partnering has reduced the risk for schools, businesses, business districts, and neighborhoods.

Developing a holistic risk reduction strategy, with mitigation as its cornerstone, must include the development of partnerships, and at the risk of using overly used words and concepts, achieving a sustainable risk resistant environment.

Where we go from here?

This conference is by no means the culmination of a process - it is a beginning and I join Robert Zimmerman and Gail Dreckman, our President and Vice president, in encouraging your support and partnership.

Here are activities and products to look forward to this coming year.

1. Barry McDonnell, of the Contingency Planners and Recovery Managers has documented some lessons learned from the earthquake and these are available on our web site.
2. Conference presentations will be made available on a VHS format, possibly DVD.
3. In support of business resumption planning for small businesses, CREW is developing a video highlighting the lessons learned from the Nisqually earthquake.
4. CREW is participating in a video project that will describe the region's risks and vulnerabilities
5. CREW is scheduling a series of Business Forums. Many will support the University of Washington Burke Museum project "The Big One", and will take advantage of products produced from and tools introduced at the conference. Of particular importance and not yet mentioned are:

• Tools introduced by Carl Cook the Director of the FEMA Region 10 Insurance and Mitigation Division that are included on the FEMA web site at www.FEMA.gov;
• The communication tools described by Dexada Jorgensen, BC Telecommunications Canada and Rick North, contingency planner for the Bon Marche. These power point presentations are being placed on a VHS to include sound and should be available this spring
• The IBHS tool kit accessible through the CREW web site and touted by Rick Jenkins (SBA). Michele Steinberg of the Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) and Andre Le Duc, University of Oregon.

6. CREW will continue to hold quarterly meetings on topical issues and we urge you to visit our web site often.

Now, that you've scanned this article and before you actually read it, you may wish to go to your local "Starbucks", order a cup of coffee (I like mine black, my wife usually orders a "double, non-fat, tall, extra hot, with vanilla latte") and reflect on how these company presenters helped us through their honest, straight forwardness and willingness to expose their vulnerabilities. And, make a note in your PDA to visit www.seattlechocolate.com and order a box of some wonderfully delicious chocolates. You can eat them while riding in a Boeing product and wearing something purchased at The Bon.