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Principle
5: Potential Impacts
The main important piece of information for decision makers
in the OCSD was that there had been a flood in 1995, during which they
had suffered severe damage. The system, however, including human preparedness,
had not been updated to withstand another event like that without suffering
damage again. By their assessment, there were measures that could be taken
to avoid the costs of the 1995 flooding event, but they would be costly.
(View decision
tree for this case)
The choices faced
by the OCSD could be summarized as follows:
1) Do nothing
(I.e., normal winter management)
a) Rainfall is below normal: saved some extra expenses and no damage is
incurred
b) Rainfall is close to normal: saved some extra expenses and no damage
is incurred
c) Rainfall is above normal: costs to the system are high, potentially
much higher than the preventative measures would have cost, and much damage
is incurred.
2) Take preventative measures (as listed above)
a) Rainfall is below normal: Costs of preventative measure are high, there
is some public criticism for seemingly "unnecessary" expenditures.
Possibly could consider it generally wise to be prepared but hard to get
public buy-in.
b) Rainfall is close to normal: same as above.
c) Rainfall is above normal: Although costs of prevention were high, money
saved in prevented damage far outweighs costs. Seen by all as a "success"
story.
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