ABB St Louis-- why talk about it here?

Jan. 7, 2010

We've posted some updates about this horrific incident here. Once again, we wish to extend our condolences to the ABB family, and to all the victims and their families.

Why should we talk about this tragedy? Nancy Bartels nailed it in one of our previous updates: this is another facet of security.

We've posted some updates about this horrific incident here. Once again, we wish to extend our condolences to the ABB family, and to all the victims and their families.

Why should we talk about this tragedy? Nancy Bartels nailed it in one of our previous updates: this is another facet of security.

As I've said repeatedly, we're dealing with a complex system when we start talking about functional security, functional safety, physical security, simulation, training and disaster recovery. We aren't dealing with collections of simple systems. Complex systems interact in completely unexpected ways that we don't often connect.

We see the connection in events like this, and in the case of the Underpants Bomber and other physical security incidents, as Nancy pointed out earlier today in this blog thread.

We see the need for things like personnel location monitoring, personal status monitoring, broadband video monitoring, and all the other tools we're being provided with, but haven't rolled out widely into our plants yet.

But above all, we see the need for a "security consciousness" that we really don't have.

Let's all pray for the victims, and work to make our plants safer for all.

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