Marina International, June 2001

Ready for Anything
by Patience Welton

Are you ready if the next phone call you receive is a bomb threat? Or, if you weren’t there would your staff know what to do? I'll bet you’re thinking yeah, like that would ever happen because until this year that would have been my response. At a luncheon for marina operators, my companion was bemoaning the fact while en route to the meeting her marina had received a bomb threat. I was impressed with her calm demeanor and asked stupid question number one. Did your staff know what to do? The answer was, of course they’ve been trained. At this point I am thinking would I know what to do let alone know how to train my staff? Not learning my lesson from stupid question number one, I moved on to the second stupid question. Who ever heard of a bomb threat to a marina? Two more marina operators at the table of twelve shared their bomb scare stories and I made a mental note to keep my mouth shut and reevaluate my emergency plans as soon as I got home.

Human fenders
We all train our staff not to use their body parts as fenders between the boat and the dock, what the proper procedure is for fueling, and where the fire extinguishers are but do we really give them all the training they should have to handle any situation. Do you teach them the chain of command, how to call in an emergency and to whom, that directing the emergency equipment and crowd control are probably the most important tasks they can preform. How about referring all questions to the company’s designated spokesperson. I don’t know about you but I personally have nightmares of the 18 year-old dock attendant appearing on the nightly news giving his expert opinion on the cause of the fire, accident, sinkingԸ Scary thought isn’t it?  

There is so much more to emergency training than how to cope with the immediate problem. Would your staff remember to lock the cash register/ship’s store before running out to help? Is your company policy “No attempts are to be made to safeguard property or money if there is any risk of physical harm to anyone: safeguarding life is the primary concern.” If not, why not? Does everyone really understand this policy means in a robbery, give them the money… Continue »