It was an unfortunate mishap. Things went badly wrong. Here's how an Incident Command System can prevent nasty events happening again

Joshua Sharfstein, the former health commissioner of Baltimore, discusses the day a simple power failure led to embarrassment and dysfunction, and what they did to prevent it happening again.

It was a sweltering day during a hot Baltimore summer. Under the strain of everyone’s air conditioning demands, the grid faltered. One of the Health Department’s buildings lost power, and the 50 or so staff who worked there were trying to find out whether they should go home.

Some of the affected workers decided to call me, the health commissioner, on my cell phone.