Winter functions in the Chugach Dispatch Center include resource tracking for the Forest Avalanche Center which requires daily coordination and communication for high risk/remote location operations. At this time of year it is typical for the dispatch center to be staffed by just one person due to the given workload. At the time of the event reported in the safenet the single dispatcher could not access the primary means of receiving the avalanche center’s plan. In this day and age there are many methods of transmitting/sharing information and a secondary method was employed in this case to mitigate the issue. A conversation with the program manager around redundant systems and mitigations was positive and it’s clear that the program is prepared for outages with back up plans and methods.
The concern that is intended for a larger audience is what seemed to be the inability to remedy a glitch when reaching out to the experts at the help desk. The dispatcher was locked out of her computer as a result of a security training deadline. The training had been completed months prior yet the system mis-identified her and many others in the agency as not being compliant. When it was finally clear that the fault was with the push, not the user, the remedy was not immediate. Initially, the dispatcher was told that a remedy may take up to 30 days (this was eventually elevated by a supervisor and 24 hours later the fix was completed).
We rely heavily on the technology we use for tools in our jobs. All users should be prepared for that moment when these tools are suddenly not available and the engineers managing the tools need to carefully plan and test those processes that have potential to cause delays and breaks in service. |
