For over two decades, my company has shown leaders how to scale through systems thinking, that is, how all of your systems are interconnected. Yet, time and time again, we only truly notice the gaps when disaster strikes.
Now, imagine this:
An ice storm barrels through on a Friday night. Temperatures plummet. Rain turns to sheets of ice. Trees—once sturdy—snap like twigs, collapsing across roads, crushing cars, and ripping down power lines. Transformers explode, plunging entire communities into darkness.
If you live in a rural area, your world grinds to a halt. Your electric water heater? Dead. Your septic system? Useless. Your freezer full of food? Thawing by the hour. You reach for your phone—no signal to call. Only intermitted texts work if you have a cell phone. You can’t access internet. If you have a landline, it’s dead.
Even if you could drive to a store, the roads are blocked. And if they weren’t? Gas stations have no power. No power means no pumps, no transactions, and no way to refill your empty tank.
Banks are closed. ATMs are down. If you don’t have cash, you’re out of luck.
Your neighbor has a generator, but the local hardware store is out of them if they are even open. Maybe you drive two hours in search of fuel, food, and supplies, hoping the trip isn’t in vain. But what if you’re elderly? What if you rely on daily medication, and the pharmacy is shuttered? What if you’re cold, hungry, and no help is coming?
You can’t call emergency services. Social services have no way to access critical records. Delivery trucks can’t make it through the debris-littered roads. By the time officials declare a state of emergency—48 hours or more after the storm—it’s already been two or more days of brutal, bone-chilling cold.
People can’t get to work and employers can’t access their electronic payroll to pay them. Employees can’t access unemployment, because internet is down.
Five days in, and the rest of the state is just learning about the devastation. For many, it’s already too late.
No showers. No food. No heat. No prescriptions. No communication. The only saving grace? A neighbor who thought to check in. But even they have their limits.
If you can get word to family through intermittent text messages to drive in food, diapers, supplies, gas, propane, and generator, you’re one of the lucky ones. If you have a wood stove to heat your home or a gas stove, you’re one of the lucky ones. If you have a chainsaw and gas to run that chainsaw to cut the fallen trees to get out of your driveway and you haven’t had a tree fall on your house, you are one of the lucky ones.
Then, another storm looms. More ice. More wind. The linemen work tirelessly, hands frozen, exhaustion etched into every movement as they try to restore power. But for many, survival mode has already taken its toll.
You don’t have to imagine this. It is happening in Northern Michigan right now.
So, ask yourself—how interruption-ready are you? Can your company function when systems fail? Most importantly, how can you and your company step up to serve its community in an emergency before the crisis turns into catastrophe?
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