STATES OF EMERGENCY - Patrick Lagadec

2 Introductionhas been tarnished by fears similar to those plaguing the nuclear industry.Insurance companies make major strategic cutbacks (5) (6).- Cape Canaveral, January 1986: Challenger, the space shuttle, explodes inflight and the team, its projects and symbols (including a teacher who was togive a lesson from space) die in a live broadcast watched by tens of millionsof viewers. NASA falters under the shock, then is torn apart by the officialinvestigation. The United States finds itself knocked out of space.-Chernobyl, April 1986: a terrible nuclear incident occurs 130 milesoutside Kiev and is revealed by Sweden. Few immediate deaths: a cloud driftsacross all of Europe, reaching Greece and Turkey to the south, and crossesover the North Pole to touch Japan and the west coast of the United States.(Despite the barrage of declarations and the wall of silence erected, France isalso affected.) This cloud unsettles numerous organizations lying in its path.A worldwide "shockwave" not only shakes the public's perception of thistechnology down to its roots, but also damages the image of public authorityand experts as a whole.-Basel, November 1986: in the aftermath of a chemical productswarehouse fire, toxic chemicals flow into the Rhine. A chain reaction runsthrough all the countries touching the banks of this river, down to its mouth.This is the third major public emotion of the year. Confidence in technologyand the credibility accorded to industry is further eroded, especially becauseof the company's delays in providing information.Beyond the accident, the crisisIn The Risk Civilization we laid out the many facets of this problem,ranging from accident prevention to dealing with catastrophe. Now we wouldlike to look more closely at one of the moments in this vast ensemble: theshock itself, when the breakdown takes place, engendering extensive and deepdisturbances. This examination is urgently necessary today, because twothings have become clear: first, no matter what efforts are made in the areaof prevention, the possibility of grave events persists; second, the processesthat are unfailingly set in motion immediately after an acute breakdown aregenerally very poorly handled. From a breakdown, we regularly findourselves slipping rapidly out of control and into crisis - which means,roughly speaking, a situation in which any corrective efforts made arehampered by a sense of confusion, helplessness, and aggravation.Who has not been surprised to observe this annoying tendency our systemshave of becoming gummed up as soon as an accident occurs - unless theincident is a most classic one, easily handled by the emergency services? Ourtactical weapons are insufficient, our organizational structures too narrow,our business cultures fundamentally unadapted to dealing with the unforeseen,our fears camouflaged by rationalizations that crumble under the slightestpressure. We are poorly equipped to nip a crisis in the bud.