Last weekend’s storm in Latvia was more than just unpleasant or extreme weather. Widespread power cuts, disrupted mobile communications, problems at filling stations, in hospitals and in shops, disrupted transport – within a few hours it became very visible how closely our everyday life and our economy are tied to systems whose working we take for granted.
We are used to electricity always being there, to mobile communications working, to being able to pay for a purchase by card and to fuel being available around the clock and without limit at filling stations. Yet serious disruption at a single link in the chain is enough for the consequences to spread much further. With no electricity, part of the communications infrastructure stops working. With no electricity and no communications, problems arise with payments, with the flow of information and with the work of businesses. A filling station may have fuel, but without electricity the pumps do not work. A shop may have food, but without electricity the tills and the refrigeration units do not work. The events of these past days are therefore not only a story about a storm or an energy crisis. They are a story about security, sustainability and our shared resilience.
There is still a degree of disbelief in society about climate change. As long as it shows itself in scientists’ models, temperature curves and forecasts for 2050 or 2100, the problem seems remote to many. But our attitude changes when we see the consequences of extreme weather in our own daily lives: when roads and fields flood, when a storm brings down trees and tears through power lines, when prolonged heat affects people’s health and ability to work, when drought causes losses in agriculture.
Latvia’s long-term observations also show that the climate is changing. But it is important not to fall into the opposite extreme: one storm, one rainy summer, one cold winter or one heatwave is not in itself climate change. We see climate change in long-term trends, and it does not mean that Latvia will from now on only be hotter or drier. It means changes in climatic conditions, greater variability and a need to reckon more seriously with extreme weather. There is therefore no need to wait for the next disaster before starting to prepare. Acknowledging climate change does not mean living in constant fear of the next storm or downpour. It means accepting that the conditions on which we based our development plans for infrastructure, businesses and households 20 or 30 years ago will not always be the same in the decades ahead. And then the rational course is to identify, assess and reduce the risks. In the end, a crisis is not created by the natural event alone. A crisis arises when an extreme event meets a vulnerable and unprepared system.
Critical infrastructure is not just the electricity grid
The events of the past days call for a much broader look at what we in Latvia consider to be critical infrastructure. Electricity grids, telecommunications, water supply, hospitals, emergency services and public administration systems are the obvious answer. But a crisis very quickly shows that facilities we would not normally think of in that category also become critically important for people’s everyday safety. For rural households, after 12, 24 or 48 hours without electricity, the food shop can become critically important. Or the nearest filling station. Or a place where you can charge a phone and a power bank, get drinking water, receive up-to-date information and, if need be, warm up. Is our understanding of critical infrastructure not too centralised? Perhaps in a crisis a school is not only an educational institution. It could become a local safety point – a place with a generator, a reserve of drinking water, somewhere to charge a phone and to receive information. In some places a municipal building could serve this function, in others a post office, a shop or a filling station. This question is particularly important in the regions. The greater the distance to a town and the fewer alternative services there are, the more significant every locally available resource becomes in a crisis. If a small settlement has only one shop, one filling station and one public building, their ability to keep working during a long power cut becomes a matter of public safety.
At the same time we have to understand that we cannot expect every small shop, post office or filling station to become a civil protection facility purely at its own expense. But nor can we assume that society’s resilience will be ensured by state institutions alone. The state and local governments, together with businesses, should be able to identify the places that matter particularly to a given community in a crisis, and agree on how to keep them running. It may be necessary to work on developing models of public and private sector cooperation. But first we need a clear understanding of what services people will need at the moment when the usual systems stop working. Business, too, has a much larger role in this system than companies themselves sometimes realise. In a crisis, a large food retailer, a network of filling stations, a telecommunications company, a bank, a logistics company or a pharmacy provides more than a commercial service. It becomes part of the infrastructure society needs in order to function. The resilience of businesses is therefore also the resilience of society.
After this weekend, businesses would do well to ask themselves some very practical questions. How long can we keep operating without electricity? What happens if mobile communications and the internet go down at the same time? Can we accept payments? Do the access control, security and fire safety systems work? Can we reach our employees? Are the most important data and systems available? Does the generator work, and does it have enough fuel? You can have a perfectly drafted business continuity plan and a backup generator, but what good is it if a critically important supplier is not working? If a driver cannot fill up with fuel? If employees cannot get to work because a road is flooded? If the warehouse is working but the goods cannot be delivered to customers?
It is precisely here that assessing climate risks turns from a seemingly abstract subject into a very practical management tool. A company does not need to be able to predict the date of the next storm. It needs to understand its own vulnerability: which events can affect its operations, which processes are the most critical, what the interdependencies are, and what can be done today to reduce potential losses.
Tools that allow physical and transition climate risks to be assessed in a structured way are already available to companies in Latvia, among them klimatariski.lv. But the most important thing is not the assessment document or the table itself. The most valuable part is the process that makes a company’s management ask the question: what will happen to our business if the conditions we take for granted today cease to exist for a time?
72-hour preparedness is not needed only in the event of war
In recent years there has been a great deal of talk about 72-hour preparedness, the emergency bag, civil protection notifications and the “112 Latvija” app in the context of national security and military threat. Given the geopolitical situation, that is understandable. It can, however, create the mistaken impression that we will need these tools only in the event of war. But civil protection is much broader than that. 72-hour preparedness is not needed only for war. It is preparedness for a situation in which the usual infrastructure is unavailable for several days: electricity, water supply, communications, payment systems, or the ability to move about freely. The “112 Latvija” app, too, is not only about a military threat. It is part of our ability to receive information and to act in a range of emergencies, including during storms, floods and other natural hazards.
After the past weekend, then, it is worth each of us asking a very simple question: how ready was I for a situation like that? If there is no electricity for 24 or 48 hours, would there be enough drinking water at home? Would the power bank be charged? A torch and batteries? A radio? The most necessary medicines? A little cash for when payment terminals are not working? Would the car’s fuel tank not be almost empty? Would I know where to look for reliable information if the internet and mobile communications were disrupted?
And, just as importantly, would we know how the people around us are coping in such a situation? Society’s resilience is not only individual preparedness. It is also the ability to notice those who become more vulnerable in a crisis – older people, people with restricted mobility, families with small children, or people whose health depends on electrically powered devices.
In closing, I want to stress that we cannot build a country, a company or a household that no storm, downpour, flood, drought, heatwave or power failure will affect. Trying to eliminate every single risk would be both impossible and disproportionately expensive. But we can understand much better where we are vulnerable. And we can finally accept that preparing for climate risks is not scaremongering. It is the same rational risk management as fire safety, cybersecurity or financial risk management.
Last weekend’s storm is over. The power supply will be restored, the trees cleared, the roads put right, and everyday life will return to its usual course. But what will each of us have learned from it, and what will we have changed?