There are 3 questions to be answered separately.
1) (half a page) In our first class we examined the “lessons learned” prepared by a disaster class at VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY. Using these 12 lessons summarizing the findings of the class list -and briefly discuss those disasters that fall into each category of the lessons. A given disaster may very well fall into several “lessons” (simply list if discussed before). https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2008/10/31/lessons-learned-the-hard-way/
2) (1 page and a half ) Are there ‘common threads’ shared by all disasters?
What are these common threads? how these common threads arise before, during, and after disasters? Discuss how knowledge of these common threads aid in understanding how to prevent and prepare for disasters. What effect do they have on remediation and recovery efforts? How do the threads interact with each other? What role do psychological, sociological, cultural, regulatory, and legal factors have on prevention, remediation and recovery?
3) (3 pages) After graduating from your “home university” you decide to pursue disaster management as a career. You have obtained a Masters in safety and disaster management from universities such as Berkeley, Louisiana State, or Copenhagen, and armed with this knowledge and much enthusiasm you sought employment and have just landed a nice paying job as a ‘safety process and culture coordinator” for a large French multinational company that constructs oil and gas facilities throughout the world.
After a few months of getting to know your colleagues on the safety process team at headquarters (12 persons), you have been assigned to work on a massive project -building a natural gas facility in Kazakhstan. The facility is a joint venture of the Kazakstan government (51%), Chinese (34%), and Russian interests (15%) ostensibly private but tightly controlled respectively by the Chinese communist party and oligarchs close to Putin.
The enormous project -$15 billion total investment of which $3 billion is for the construction of the facilities (contract price for your company) is running late (7 months) and is increasing over budget.
Your company performs sophisticated design work and some construction but mostly sub-contracts the performance of the work on-site to other smaller construction and especially firms (European, Chinese, and Kazak).
The safety “culture” at your company compares favorably with others in the industry (which as you know has had serious issues as a whole) but little or no such “culture” apparently exists with the customer (joint venture company) nor with any of the Chinese, Kazark companies or for that matter most of the European ones.
There have been several work-related accidents on the Project (work in progress for 2 years) with tens of injuries and 4 deaths. These “accidents” were caused or affected 4 of the sub-contractors-2 Chinese, 1 European, and 1 Kazark as well as the joint venture customer.
Your boss (who reports to one of the 6 deputy project managers) appears pleasant and motivated to improve safety (both for workers) and “process” to avoid major disasters (eg. BP Texas City, Deepwater Horizon, Bhopal, or worse )
However, he knows nothing of safety and is rarely available to help you make your way.
He, therefore, gives you considerable autonomy to develop the “safety culture”.
You prepare and communicate safety awareness seminars but few employees show up despite the support (on paper) shown by senior management for your efforts.
You are now at a point where you believe that inspections would be appropriate. You have conducted three (accompanied by an engineer near retirement who knows the industry and is well respected). On the third inspection, you notice a general lack of seriousness amongst the workers, poor follow up of safety procedures on-site, and a “macho” attitude that is dismissive of your efforts and especially your warnings of future “disasters”.
A week after your third inspection an “accident” occurs leading to serious injury (no deaths). It could have been much worse and you are very concerned about the risk of a major blow-out”
You go to your boss relate your concerns and ask him to bring them to senior management’s attention. He does so (without much conviction) but is told not to “rock the boat” as your concerns have drifted to the customer who was less than happy with your “creating unnecessary tension” and in a menacing tone told the Project Manager “you—-are behind schedule and we will not tolerate it much longer-we know there is danger from time to time but that is the nature of the business. We have had many ‘near misses” on this and other projects but that is nothing to worry about.
How should you proceed? What problems do you think exist and how should this be addressed?
Why is it important to understand and take into account the training, mores, professional approach, and motivation of different professions-engineers, lawyers, financiers, executives, physicians, politicians, bureaucrats, and the public in designing and implementing your safety and disasters culture?
NB: please make sure to cite your source if you decide to do so.
