..."let my people go or there will be plagues...
That would be the plague of excessive news coverage of snow...and....and...errrr, a few inches of snow in the Capital.
So let's see...this snow was forecast nearly a week ago. True enough it's more snow than we've seen for a while but it wasn't exactly on biblical proportions.
Everyone, but everyone, is complaining that the capital ground to a halt with barely a bus, a tube or a train seemingly running.
For me, the amusing thing is to see a country so tuned to the idea of Business Continuity planning in terms of terrorist and avian flu threats get laid low by precipitation...and in a temperate climate too.
Business was badly hit today...I'm guessing there will be a lot of accusations flying around.
London council tax payers will likely rage about the lack of gritting, possibly even the lack of snow ploughs.
Problem is, there's never enough money to pay for everything. So do we buy snow ploughs, more gritters or anti terrorist measures like strategically placed concrete bollards?
That's the job of the Business Continuity planners. They should identify all the risks, weigh the impact and likelihood. Then they should look at costs of measures versus the benefits of the measures (or the cost of not putting that measure in place).
If you objectively measure impact/likelihood of terrorist action similar to that seen in 9/11 and 6-10 inches of snow falling the in the capital you might come up with view that snow ploughs are more important than anti-terrorist measures.
But would you like to be the one justifying that after the event?
Except snow hasn't fallen like this in 20 years so if you invest in a load of new snow ploughs they could well end up sitting in their depot for much of their life.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, the commotion has been blown out of all proportion. So the buses din't run for a day and a lot of people took Monday off work; it's hardly civilisation grinding to a stand still.
I seem to recall having days off for similar reasons in my youth too, so I think there's an element of rose tinted nostalgia going around right now.
@James
ReplyDeleteI agree...that's kind of my point.
Councils and goverments have to plan for a lot of eventualities that rarely happen but have a big impact when they do.
Pretty much, they can't win.
"Blown out of proportion" yep, I agree but we're in a very blamey society these days with a very vocal minority wailing "something must be done"
I think I remember 2 snow days at school and this time was the only time in 26 years that I haven't got into work beacause of the snow...but in part that was because I could easily and effectively work from home. If my job were different, I would probably have walked in.