Alert Networking

The past week the wind blew in Mexico City, and the alarms went on among different public places; one of them was the university where I work. When we were at the lunch break some canvas flew away and the sports field had some troubles, the security personnel ask us to keep inside the buildings and away from windows or possible flying objects.

Once the people and students were safe, the next request was that everybody has to leave the campus and stop activities for the day. The physical evaluation of the university lead to this activity. So I gather my team and ask them to take their laptops and go directly home. Taking the laptops with them will allow to continue their activities at home and preventing that the alert continues the next day so they could make home office.

Once the strategy was made, we say farewell and also requested the information on each team member arrival to home, so everyone could be sure that we were fine.

Almost everything was going quite well, but at the time I wanted to contact my son Mauricio, I couldn't reach him, the lines were saturated, there was no Whats app service, Internet drop down, I couldn't reach him by messenger, I couldn't communicate with him and give some instructions.

Once I arrive to my car, I found out that he wasn't there and I didn't have a clue if he decided to take a bus to go home, or if he was still at a classroom waiting for me to pick up him. I try for 15 more minutes until I have luck and reach him by phone, he still was at his high school waiting for a parent to pick him up or to a bus arrival. So I asked him to move to our car and he gave his teachers this information.

The next activity was to make contact with Arturo, the second of my sons. It's important to let you know that he has school transport and he has to be delivered to our house. So it wasn't that difficult to find him and ask him that he should not leave the house until we were all together.

This alert made me think about the little training my family has to react to this type of alerts. Where do we have to meet? What to expect the other will do? What to do if communications fail? How long wait to look for each other?

With this learning, I can give you some recommendations to allow the networking in alert states:

1.- Make a plan with your family taking in account your familiar places, the communications you have, time you have to wait for communicate, act in consequence. Of course you have to consider your son's ages and give them responsibilities according to them.

2.- Show some empathy with your team, ask them if they have trouble to move, or if their homes could be in warning zones.

3.- Be sure to prepare a communication line that allow you to know how everybody is doing.

4.- Remember to keep calm, you will achieve nothing by preoccupation.

5.- Make yourself useful by doing some actions that keep you safe and your love ones.