Quickly Noted: DC Metro Crash
2009 June 26
My most sincere thoughts and well-wishes to the folks impacted by this week’s Metrorail train crash. It’s simply horrifying.
My only thoughts on the subject are that there is tons of great after-action blogging going on, especially with respect to the public information SNAFU. I can’t say it any better than these folks, so I’ll just point you in their direction.
- Amanda Ripley has a few posts on the crash. The first is on how regular people–the survivors–are the most important responders. The second is on how terribly the public information was conducted and is really eye-opening. Ms. Ripley wrote the book, The Unthinkable, that I reviewed earlier, and gave a ridiculously good keynote at the 2009 Public Health Preparedness Summit.
- My very favorite crisisblogger, Gerald Baron, has two posts so far on the crash. The first was on the poor job done by initial reports on the cause of the crash. The second reviewed the public information problems, but from a much more incident command point of view. The two posts, when read in tandem, are a truly damning statement on the whole affair. Gerald is one of the least interested in political butt-covering people that I know, and if he’s pointing out problems and passing along names, you know it’s bad.
- Finally, Homeland Security Watch passes along an article from the Christian Science Monitor about the success of the rescue effort, and the utter failure of effective and informative communication.
Photo credit: another sergio
