Emergency Preparedness Plan

An emergency preparedness plan is extremely important

Almost all Morgan Stanley employees survived September 11, because their head of security insisted they really practiced what to do in case of fire or another terrorist attack. It can save thousands of lives in an emergency.

I've been reading a terrific book The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes -- And Why by Amanda Ripley. It's an in-depth look at how people behave during emergencies, especially disasters involving many people. That makes its focus a little different than The Survivors Club by Ben Sherwood which I also recommend. Both are great.

Everybody Needs to Make a Emergency Preparedness Plan

Toward the end of The Unthinkable, she profiles a man who illustrates emergency planning. His name was Rick Rescorla. He was a highly decorated soldier, and a picture of him from Vietnam is on the cover of book on Vietnam. Sometime after after he left the service, he took a job as head of security for the offices of Morgan Stanley in the World Trade Center.

In the late 1980s he became concerned about the possibility of terrorists. He'd fought the enemies of American and freedom in one war, and he recognized the form of the war and the battlefront had changed. Terrorism was the wave of the future.

So he invited an old Army buddy of his who was now a counterterrorism expert to come take a look at the Twin Towers and assess their vulnerability to terrorism.

His friend looked around and laughed. "Piece of cake," he said. "All they'd have to do is drive a truck full of explosives into the parking area."

So Riscorla wrote a memo to the Port Authority of New York (which had charge of security for the Trade Center) recommending they take measures to prevent such an attack. They ignored Rescorla's memo.

In January 1993, a terrorist drove a truck full of explosives into the World Trade Center parking garage and set it off.

The response of Morgan Stanley employees to that evacuation impressed Rescorla with its inefficiency. Knowing that he couldn't depend on the Port Authority and believing the terrorists would strike again (he told people they might fly a cargo plane full of explosives into the building), he forced the employees in his charge to undergo full fire drills.

It didn't matter that they were meeting with a wealthy client, making a million dollar deal on the phone or business trading fortunes for the company, they had to go. For eight years they practiced going down the stairs in order.

They hated it, they made fun of these emergency preparations, but they learned what to do.

Having an Emergency Preparedness Plan Can Save the Lives of Your Loved Ones

This is in total contrast to every other occupant of those buildings. They'd never been forced to complete a full fire drill. Many didn't know where the steps were.

On September 11, the Port Authority told everyone in the second tower to keep their seats and wait for instructions.

Rescorla got almost all 2,500+ Morgan Stanley employees safely to the ground and out the building in record time, before it collapsed. Several remained behind, however, and he went in to retrieve them . . . but never returned. Nor was his body ever found.

Thanks to his efforts to create a real emergency preparedness plan, several thousand lives were saved that day.