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One thing that most of us
in this hobby have had to deal with is the prejudiced opinion of outsiders
that Gamers are reality challenged geeks that cannot function in the real
world and that Gaming itself has no practical value. The relief efforts
for Hurricane Katrina give a tremendous example of how these statements
are false.
My region has a facility designed to coordinate communications between the
Incident Command System and health care providers such as hospitals,
nursing homes, health departments and clinics. The facility is not
routinely staffed but counts on a duty roster of volunteers from a variety
of other organizations to make it operational. When I took the management
position there in July of this year one of my biggest worries was how to
staff the facility if those volunteers, all of whom have emergency
management responsibilities at their full time jobs, are tasked elsewhere.
This was exactly the situation I found myself in on Saturday when the call
came to activate the center on Sunday Sept 4th. To complicate matters it
was also a holiday weekend and many other people were out of town.
Lacking any other resource I called upon my friends, men and women that
make up a long standing gaming group. As with many gaming groups the
people involved are a diverse lot, with educations ranging from high
school to advanced degrees. None of them work in emergency response or
have any background in professional emergency preparedness. Several are
software engineers, another works for a publishing company, and my wife is
a corporate travel agent. All of them came down and hit the ground running
that Sunday morning. Before I could even think of things, such as
spreadsheets and databases, they began to appear on the center's computer
system. Within hours we had established a huge spreadsheet of medical
professionals willing to staff our regional reception center.
Transportation companies had been contacted for the use of vans, busses
and even cabs to move evacuees to appropriate medical clinics or temporary
housing. Messages flashed out over HEAR radio and the web bases EMSystem
to hospitals in ten counties in two States. Hundreds of phone calls were
facilitated. Resources were located and methods to ensure they got where
they were needed were found.
In the critical first hours only two professionals, including myself, were
available to work in the center. If we had been without my gaming friends'
assistance I doubt the center would have reacted as quickly. Not a single
phone call was dropped. No data was lost and no request for information or
assistance went unanswered.
All through Sunday and Monday these in people stood in and made the center
fully operational for an extended period for the very first time. Incoming
information was collected and rapidly evolving information streams were
directed to a variety of facilities. By stand down on Monday evening we
had written and road validated directions to the reception center, built
spreadsheets for transportation, durable medical equipment (such as wheel
chairs and walkers) and other resources and the medical workers list had
grown to several hundred persons. Over the rest of this week staffing has
been done by a talented group of other people as well, since all my gaming
friends are gainfully employed and cannot leave their day jobs for
extended periods. Some have been able to come in for a morning or an
afternoon shift. One came in and did sterling work setting up two new fax
machines and other electronic equipment, a job he did with polished
efficiency.
"Well begun, half done" is an old saying, but no less true for its age. The communications center was truly well begun and that laid a foundation for future success. We never got behind the events. Our decision loop was always positive, We could even look ahead and begin long range planning. If these concepts seem familiar to many it is because they are often used in gaming, and in all honesty many of the skills we used those first two days were ones learned in years of simulations and role playing. We acted as a team because for years we had role played as one. We knew each other's strengths and weaknesses and were able to seamlessly establish tasking to make best use of them. I've been in emergency response and planning for over fifteen years and worked in many Tactical Operation Centers, Incident Command Posts and Emergency Operations Centers. I would be hard pressed to find one that was as free of friction as ours was. Was this entirely due to our being gamers? Certainly it wasn't. I have absolutely no doubt that being gamers gave them the skills to do the jobs we were tasked with and made us a team that got the job done. Hundreds of people will benefit from the work my gaming group did and they will never know it was a bunch of "gaming geeks" that made it happen.
Written by Terry Sofian
(Posted 10-01-2005)