Emergency Preparedness: Best Practices or Catastrophic Practices?

Emergency Preparedness: Best Practices or Catastrophic Practices?
Aubrey Gold; University of Minnesota Duluth

After thousands of lives were lost on 11 September 2001 and billions of dollars in property were destroyed from Hurricane Katrina, industries are re-evaluating their response training and emergency preparedness. Indications from semiconductor surveys and interviews share that significant policies and procedures are currently in place regarding natural disasters. However, the majority of survey respondents indicated that they did not feel that terrorism was a significantly sufficient threat to require emergency measures. Despite that perception, many existing practices will serve in implementing incident command and hazard mitigation should terrorism strike. This article outlines some of industry’s best practices. With the entire procedures and protocols semiconductor professionals have developed, it will come down to their training effectiveness to bring each of these elements together.