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 48 hours after a huge explosion at a UK fuel depot, firefighters were still trying to extinguish the fire. Various BC lessons can be gleaned from the incident.
The fire started early Sunday morning at the Buncefield site in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. Altogether 20 huge oil and fuel storage tanks ignited, creating a series of explosions and a large plume of smoke.
Local people and businesses were evacuated and an exclusion zone imposed around the site. Extensive damage occurred to some business premises, especially to those located in a nearby business park.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott told the House of Commons yesterday that the incident was the largest of its kind in the UK and Europe during peacetime.
The Buncefield oil depot is operated by Total and part-owned by Texaco.
In terms of business continuity lessons, these will emerge over time, but initially the following seem evident:
Don’t assume that a worst case scenario is too unrealistic to happen
The scale of this incident is unprecedented but it was predictable, and local emergency planners recognised this. Recent exercises had been run to test plans to deal with just such an incident and the rapid and well-coordinated response to the incident is testament to good contingency planning.
Skepticism is a natural human reaction when seemingly unlikely scenarios are brought up during the planning process. Other members of your business continuity planning team may dismiss the possibility of a worst case scenario for your business ever happening and may therefore dismiss the need to make any preparations for such an incident. Buncefield provides strong ammunition against such attitudes.
When making risk assessments look beyond the boundaries of your business
No business exists in a vacuum, all have external factors which introduce risk. However, it is tempting during the risk assessment and the Business Impact Analysis process to become so focused upon the business or organisation in question that external risks and dependencies become forgotten or ignored. Buncefield shows the importance of looking beyond your business boundaries. Risk assessments need to consider the other organisations that are active in geographical locations close to your premises. What hazards are inherent in the operations of these organisations and how could they impact upon your business? What measures can you take to mitigate these risks and what plans do you need to have in place to prepare for a neighbourhood disaster?
Location is a vital consideration
The Buncefield oil depot has been in its current location for over 40 years, therefore the businesses that decided to locate in the area in the intervening years have done so in the full knowledge of its proximity. The incident displays the importance of considering man-made as well as natural hazards when making the initial decision about where to locate a business premises. Location is probably the decision that can have the single greatest impact on the extent of the avoidable risks faced by the business. Get it right and you can mitigate many risks in one fell swoop. Risk mitigation must be one of the elements in the location cost-benefit equation.
Liaise with local authorities
Liaising with local authorities is one of the key disciplines of the business continuity planning process, yet it is the one most often ignored or forgotten about. Buncefield shows how important it is to know how local authorities and emergency services will respond to a major incident in your area. What procedures will be put in place which will impact your business? What exclusion zones do you need to plan for? Who will you need to deal with to get access to a premises in an exclusion zone? The answers to these questions need to inform your business continuity planning process. If you fail to liaise with local authorities your plans may be missing vital information which will help you manage the next disaster effectively.
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Jim Mitchell, Account Director, Alfred McAlpine Business Services:
With every incident that occurs you hope that businesses wake up to the reality of the need for good continuity planning, but many continue to pay lip service to BC and compile plans, not to execute, but to tick the auditor's audit schedule. I hope, given that this has been such a catastrophic event (thankfully not in terms of human life) and so visibly covered in all the national media, that those business either with no plan, or with token plans will stop and think seriously about business continuity and will put the planning wheels in motion as a matter of urgency.
John Sharp, Continuity Forum:
One of the key lessons to be learnt from this incident is that it is essential for organisations to have off-site data backup arrangements in place. The cordon will be in place for several days before organisations are able to return to their sites. Initially communications may not be available so accessing information and data on-site may still be a problem.
There are several organisations who have outsourced IT processing to an organisation affected by the incident and some have had their services interrupted as a result of the damage to the systems. If satisfactory BCM had been included in the contracts there is a strong possibility their service would have suffered minimal disruptions.
Colin Ive MBCI, On behalf of the Business Continuity Institute:
No doubt many lessons will be learned from this devastating fire so widely reported in the past few days. For business in general the most significant must be that of the importance of having effective and up to date business continuity plans in place.
As this incident has demonstrated even with a high culture of safety in place all business is exposed to the risk of a neighbour's problem. The oil terminal at the Buncefield site in Hemel Hempsted is on a large industrial site which has resulted in this not just being a disaster for the oil companies but for the many businesses that shared this site.
The physical building damage has been clear for all to see from the saturation news coverage so common today but this is just a representation of the real damage inflicted upon neighbouring businesses.
Two companies have made statements to the stock exchange regarding their position with one, ASOS online fashion firm, suspending trading and halting dealing in its shares. Software and IT firm Northgate Information Solutions offices were "seriously damaged" and in a statement to the stock market, Northgate said: "The fabric of the building and the fixtures and equipment inside have been badly damaged. The back-up systems that were in place have also been rendered inoperable. "Northgate's ability to service its customers has therefore been temporarily affected."
In addition the main distribution centre for Scottish & Newcastle's subsidiary Waverley TBS was also badly damaged and S&N, the UK's biggest brewer, said its Waverly TBS wholesale subsidiary "will have incurred significant asset losses". Clearly just prior to Christmas is not the best time of year to suffer serious problems in distributing alcohol!
It is essential for business today to be able cope with and recover from disaster whether it occurs within the company or as in the incident at Hemel Hempstead when having to share it with neighbour. Those without plans are relying on luck to protect them, for the sake of all their stakeholders its time for them to stop being lucky and start being safe.
Chris Woodcock , Razor PR:
I would like to add the following bullet point to the one’s contained in the main article:
Communication is vital
Prepare a media and communications plan well in advance, linked to key identified risks. Choose one main coordinator from the emergency services (depending on the nature of the crisis or disaster) and also make this person the front spokesperson for reliably accurate and consistent reports, updates and predictions on the risks and the effective measures being taken to combat them. Have your communications and management team work closely and constructively with this person - based on solid relationships built up in advance. Consider who is also the best company spokesperson. (This requires extensive and highly collaborative media training in advance as part of pre-emptive work.) Anticipate both the emotional and the logical fears and questions from all audiences and prepare factual and careful responses, often needing to be communicated proactively and not just reactively. Keep repeating the key messages. Make sure that messages of reassurance and calm, if appropriate, are always backed up by facts. Remember that, if you don't fill the information vacuum on what has gone wrong and what the consequences will be, then some other expert (self-appointed or not) will be sure to do so instead.
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•Date: 13th Dec 2005 • Region: UK/World • Type: Article •Topic: BC general
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UPDATED 15TH DECEMBER
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