RE: EM Standards List

Thanks for the information on Tsunami warnings Tom, although
I think if you read what I wrote previously you may find I
did not in fact "dismiss non-legislated standards suggested
by lay non-EM experts". To the contrary, I encourage such
contributions and have participated in many public
contributory sessions on EM over the years - Such input is
of course to be encouraged and welcomed. It is also
reasonable to expect such input to be weighted and assessed
as appropriate. 

I do however believe (perhaps incorrectly?) this particular
initiative has a well defined mission to create an ontology
for the EM domain; and that at least at this point in time
the mission does not include trying to reinvent the science
of emergency management (noting EM is nowadays qualified and
quantified by academic and other globally recognised
certifications and accreditations). Tom EM moved from art to
science quite a few years ago. If we were to try and
reinvent EM we would surely never reach consensus and would
likely drag this initiative to infinity.  

Also - I'm fairly certain we (as a diverse group of
individuals) would not try to re-design the science of
medicine should we choose to assist with medical ontological
developments, nor would we for engineering ontological
developments. I fail to see why EM is any different. There
is an enormous body of science and knowledge on emergency
management - IMO it would be foolhardy to discard or
de-prioritise this knowledge for no more of a reason than
personal preference or opinion of management activities
during specific emergency incidents. It's a truism that
people only remember (or cite) incidents that went poorly...
instead of the Canberra fires you might consider focusing on
the NSW Jan '94 fires; the Nyngen Floods (or current QLD
flood disaster), the Pilliga Fire Disaster or any other of a
myriad of disasters that were demonstrably well managed. I
agree we should learn from our mistakes, but please remember
it's equally important that we learn from our successes.

Rgds,
Don Cameron

Received on Wednesday, 27 February 2008 03:04:20 UTC