Time to face the facts

Note from Tom: If you’re only looking for today’s pandemic post, please go to my Pandemic Blog. If you’re looking for my cyber/NERC CIP post, you’ve come to the right place.

Because I consult for several WECC entities, I’m allowed to participate in the Western Interconnect Compliance Forum (WICF) online forums, which have excellent discussions on NERC standards compliance – including CIP, of course. Recently, there was a post pointing out that WECC has posted a questionnaire to ask WECC entities whether they would consider attending their Fall Reliability and Security Workshop as an onsite meeting. I had already responded to the questionnaire, but – thinking that others may find what I said helpful – I posted the following reply today:

While I admire WECC's optimism, the fact is that nobody knows what the status of the pandemic will be in September or October. If WECC goes ahead with planning an in-person meeting - no matter what the survey responses are - they risk two things happening:

1.      There are a lot of people, especially "high risk" people like me because we're over 60, who are wondering whether we'll even feel safe getting in a plane this year, let alone in September. There's no way I'll attend an in-person meeting.

2.      Because a second wave of the virus is widely predicted for the fall and it could be worse (as happened with the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic), WECC runs the real chance of making all of their arrangements and committing a lot of their own and the entities' money in deposits, only to have to cancel the meeting in say late August, when it becomes clear that the situation is still far too fluid.

I think WECC - and all the Regions - should follow the example of MRO. They've moved their meetings completely online, and they just announced their annual fall reliability workshop will be online. About a month ago, they had an excellent one-day meeting on NERC CIP topics (which should be available in recording on their web site), which was one of the best NERC or Regional meetings I've ever attended, period. I had never thought of it that way, but there are some real advantages to having online meetings, not just cost savings, etc.

Folks, we’re in a new world. I thought that September 11, 2001 was the Day that Changed the US, and I still think that. But the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic – on health, the economy, politics, and almost everything about our daily lives – far surpasses 9/11 (just as the death toll looks like it will be at least 40 times the 9/11 toll). As we resume “normal” life, we shouldn’t assume anything will be like it was say 5-6 months ago. In-person meetings are going to be especially scrutinized: Do we really need to make everybody come together and sit in one room for this? In many and perhaps most cases, the answer will be no.

Any opinions expressed in this blog post are strictly mine and are not necessarily shared by any of the clients of Tom Alrich LLC. If you would like to comment on what you have read here, I would love to hear from you. Please email me at tom@tomalrich.com. Are you working on your CIP-013 plan and you would like some help on it? Or would you like me to review what you’ve written so far and let you know what could be improved? Just drop me an email!