We all know that disasters can come in all sizes and levels of severity, and each may be unique depending on your entity's location and function. While in a public school district, one of our most serious disasters involved a nor’easter over a veteran's day weekend. The storm ripped off a large portion of the school's northwest roof saturating and exposing several classrooms, and indirectly flooding all rooms on both floors. In another event on a much smaller scale, an incompatible metal plug in a middle school's boiler room on a pressurized line, released water over a three-day weekend.

6. Encourage Active Participation – Most workshops have one or two people that are hesitant to be involved because they are uncomfortable expressing themselves in a group setting. However, history has shown that many major discoveries and advances in human knowledge have come from introverts, so make every effort to help them join the discussion. Be careful that your efforts do not lead to embarrassment; kindly and respectfully invite participation and warmly commend responsiveness.

ISO 31000 divides the assessment of risk into three distinct steps (risk identification, risk analysis, and risk evaluation), after which the treatment of the risk is then analyzed.

Ten years ago, there was a terrible school shooting in northern Minnesota that left 10 people dead.  Shortly after it occurred, I spoke with a school security expert about the incident.  At the time, we didn’t know anything about why the shootings had occurred and there was a lot of fear and speculation going around.  I asked him if he thought school shootings were predictable (and therefore preventable) or if they were random acts of violence.  To this day, his answer still haunts me.  He said, “Someone always k