Obviously the next week’s priorities for the authorities are to rescue as many survivors as possible, to restore power, water and waste water to as many households as possible, and to put in place public health measures to avoid disease: I gather that the hospitals are gearing up for an epidemic of dysentry and other illnesses caused by insanitary conditions. Personally I’ve been really impressed by how rapidly the Civil Defence organisation has mobilised and begun working through their disaster management plans. And I’m really impressed by the guys from Orion (local power lines company) who were still working in our neighbourhood until 9:30pm last night to get the power on before the end of the day: Roger Sutton doing an excellent communications job in the media as the figurehead for what is obviously a world class organisation with many high quality people.
However, given that what I do for a living is help businesses (especially technology businesses) think about their long term strategy – where they want to be in a few years time, and the roadmap from here to there – suddenly I’ve found myself with more spare time on my hands than usual now that everyone’s immediate focus is action and disaster recovery management. So, in an attempt to make myself feel useful, I have gathered my thoughts in the next few posts on how Christchurch’s businesses can plan their recovery over the next months given the unique circumstances. Given that we’ve already had a pretty serious “dress rehearsal” in the September 4th quake, I think Christchurch businesses can actually go into the next few months relatively prepared for the challenges ahead.
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