Professor Elam

Accounting & Investing Info for San Antonio A & M

about

Shore Leave Extended for USS Reagan Sailors

June 24, 2008

About 100 sailors were left behind when the USS Ronald Reagan lifted anchor and sailed out of Hong Kong to avoid an incoming typhoon. Considering that there are 6,000 sailors on the carrier a statistcian would say that is an acceptable error rate (1.6%). But perhaps not for the 100 that are now homeless in a strange port. We are studying crisis plans in Education and benchmarking best practices in Managerial. Crisis planning is a serious concern for all given terrorist attacks, weather attacks such as we have had in China and the midwest USA, and any and all times in the military. US Universities have recently grappled with this problem, How and who does one notify on short notice? UNT has established a databank of cell phone numbers. Eagle Alert can send a mass phone alert to thousands of students and stakeholders in the event of an emergency. Imagine trying to do that with 6,000 sailors in hong kong, well that got 98.4% anyway.

Posted in Uncategorized

7 responses to “Shore Leave Extended for USS Reagan Sailors”

Christy Morgan

June 25, 2008

I find this very interesting that 100 sailors were left. What would be said to teachers or administrators if they left students back in the school during one of our disaster evacuations? In my school we practice our crisis plans several times throughout the year. I know this is not always the case at all schools. What will happen if there is really an emergency and a plan was never practiced by the students?

LikeLike

Reply
Elizabeth

June 25, 2008

Whether in a fire drill or a real emergency I cannot imagine leaving a child behind. If I was in this situation: How would I feel as a child? How would I feel as a parent? What is that child was my own? We must be prepared to encounter and deal with all kinds of crisis. When it comes to our children, I left behind is too many!

LikeLike

Reply
Victor Alfaro

June 25, 2008

With the increase in technology I can’t seem to imagine that our military does not have a gadget (watch, beeper, etc.) that would help them in a situation like this. I am sure with this case some new crisis plans will be formed.

LikeLike

Reply
Christi Harris

June 25, 2008

Can you imagine what an elementary administrator would have endured had something similar happened? If we had even left one child behind we would be fired! I think that there should have been some sort of a system where the soldiers were required to check in every two hours or so… even if only to an automated line that gave important information. It really is amazing that that’s all they left behind!

LikeLike

Reply
Nancy Robertson

June 25, 2008

Who is the statistcian to decide that this is an acceptable error rate? I would hate to be the admistrator that would have to respond to the parents of the error rate! This really makes clear the need for a crisis plan that covers as many areas as possible.

LikeLike

Reply
Reagan Sailor Mom

June 26, 2008

You guys are talking about two different things. Would you have preferred that the carrier stayed in port during a typhoon? We all know weather conditions change, and even the Navy can’t control that. The sailors all have ways of being contacted. Some may have chosen not to acknowledge the call to return to the ship. What on earth does this have to do with school children?

LikeLike

Reply
Dennis Elam

June 26, 2008

For Reagan Sailor Mom Let Me Explain
Sailor mom is of course correct and this is what I meant when I said in class that 100 of 6,000 is less than 2%. Six sigmas or three standard deviations from the mean is 98% compliance, and that is or has been in the past somewhat statistically acceptable. We are studying crisis reponse in our graduate educaiton class. Clearly 100 hopefuly well trained sailors will organize and the ship has left some instructions on what to do, after all they are in Hong Kong not marooned on a desert island though the island would be considerably cheaper….
What this has to do with education is, the grad students have been asked to construct a crisis plan, how would they respond to a crisis. The idea that a crisis, even a relatively mild one, an impending storm ( I am not dismissing all storm threats but after all the ship is not in immediate danger or being attacked) can result in displaced persons is something I wanted to point out to what may be a complacent class, what would you do if that did happen,what controls would you put in place to prevent it or let you know it did happen and to who
Sailor Mom, thanks for your interest and obvious contribution to the discussion and thanks for the service of your son or daughter in the U S Navy. Notably the U S Navy has been in the vanguard of offering relief after the Indonesia tsunami and was ready for Mynamar if they had only been more willing to accept help. Indeed the US Navy was on relief training exercise in the area when that storm happened. No one else in the world possess the logistics capabiltiy of the US Navy and we can be proud of that.
Dennis Elam

LikeLike

Reply