BP is hardly the first company to face the challenge of accident response. We've all had our own “spills.” An avoidable injury, a leaking 55 gallon drum. These things happen all the time and demand an effective response. The only real difference between us and BP is scale—and the fact that our accident response isn’t (normally) subject to intense media scrutiny. The BP situation is a catastrophe. But the silver lining is what we can learn from it to improve our own accident response plans.

6 Accident Response Lessons of the BP Spill
There are 6 lessons we safety professionals can take from what’s going on in the Gulf of Mexico to enhance the effectiveness of our accident response efforts:

1) Learn from Your Competitors’ Accident Responses. What’s happening in the Gulf is not unprecedented. A large oil spill occurred off the Mexican coast a couple years ago; and, of course, we all remember the Exxon Valdez disaster. Although it wasn’t involved in all of these disasters, one might legitimately ask whether BP learned anything from them that would have made its accident response more effective. Go to school on this, ladies and gentlemen. Always be aware of how companies in your industry respond to accidents and apply those lessons when it’s your turn to respond.

2) Be Objective about Your Accident Response Plan. Hopefully, you all have accident response plans of your own that comply with OSHA standards. That’s no cause for complacency. Ask for and be prepared to accept objective and constructive criticism of your plan. Avoid "group think" and review old plans in light of current realities.

3) Update Your Accident Response Plan. Plans need to be constantly updated to meet changing conditions. Make sure your plans don’t include names, locations, drawings and terminology that are outdated. Listing a marine biologist who had been dead 5 years as a player in its accident response plan became a public embarrassment to BP. And keep in mind that it took the railroads a century to realize that the standard distance between "grab irons" on rail cars was based on the typical reach of a male in the 1860's and that humans had grown significantly since then.

4) Tailor Your Accident Response Plan to Local Conditions. Accident response plans need to account for local conditions. It sure didn’t help BP’s image when it came to light that the wildlife protections in its accident response plan covered walruses and other species that don’t even inhabit the Gulf of Mexico.

5) Designate a Spokesperson for Your Company. In this day and age, all companies need to have somebody prepared to deal with the media if an accident occurs. A “no comment” strategy is simply not an option.

6) Work with Local Agencies. Organizations like the Red Cross, the Safety Council and disaster preparedness groups in your community will help you get your accident response plans in order. Just as importantly, they’ll help you stage simulations. You can also get accident response support from you property, workers’ comp, business continuity and product liability insurers. Have them 'OK' your plan in writing.

Conclusion

A final word of advice: Always assume the worse. Consider all the potential things that can go wrong and address them. And don’t assume that your response measures will be totally effective just because they’ve been put into writing. How many BP engineers, federal inspectors and insurance firms signed off on BP’s response plan without delving into whether the measures it listed would actually work?

Whatever can go wrong, will. We all know about Murphy’s Law. But let’s also remember the corollary to that law: “Murphy was an optimist!"

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