Friday, October 17, 2008
Engineers know that catastrophes are usually caused by a chain of cascading failures that eventually overwhelm the checks and margins of error.
For example, if the railroad company hadn't decided to save money by eliminating the backup conductor, and the conductor hadn't gone to a bachelor party the night before and stayed up all night, and the conductor's wife hadn't packed him a thermos of warm milk for his lunch, perhaps he wouldn't have fallen asleep at the wheel. But all that wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't built the tracks leading into the side of the fireworks factory to begin with.
For example, if the railroad company hadn't decided to save money by eliminating the backup conductor, and the conductor hadn't gone to a bachelor party the night before and stayed up all night, and the conductor's wife hadn't packed him a thermos of warm milk for his lunch, perhaps he wouldn't have fallen asleep at the wheel. But all that wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't built the tracks leading into the side of the fireworks factory to begin with.
