Plan for Disasters Before They Strike

The recent spate of damaging hurricanes is a stern reminder of how suddenly disasters can strike businesses and devastate communities. While your business may not be located in an area prone to hurricanes, you could still be vulnerable to other kinds of natural and man-made disasters such as fire, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, landslides, or terrorist attacks. Your life and livelihood, as well as those of your employees, and the very health of the community, could be at stake. Are you prepared?

To be able to recover and thrive after a disaster situation requires a comprehensive disaster response plan, which you should develop and have in place long before an actual disaster strikes.

Basic steps you should take now include:

• Purchasing and storing emergency supplies, including food, water, blankets, flashlights, etc.
• Creating a written plan for how you will deal with people and property in an emergency, including how you will:
  
  
  • Evacuate or shelter people.
  • Care for the sick and injured.
  • Account for all people in the building.
  • Maintain communication between employees and managers after the building is vacated and telephone services aren’t working.
  • Secure new office space or work equipment, if needed.
  • Hook up utilities (telephone, Internet, power, water, etc.) at the new location.
  • Secure and recover cash, valuables, and other inventory.
    
    

• Making sure all employees have at least two contact phone numbers to call for emergency assistance and return-to-work information.
• Meeting with your insurance agent or broker and finding out exactly what losses your policies will and will not cover, and your policy deductibles and limits.
• Creating a list of alternate suppliers and vendors, in case your primary ones are knocked out of action by the disaster.
• Inventorying assets and keeping this list stored off site
• Deciding what records you will need access to, and making sure you have copies of such things as lease agreements, real property deeds, property and inventory photos and backup computer files
• Designating specific personnel to be responsible for critical parts of the plan.
• Practicing evacuating your building and accounting for all employees within the building.
• Reviewing your plan at least once a year.
• See http://www.ready.gov/business/index.html for more information about how to create your own plan.
  
  

During an actual emergency you should:

• Try to stay calm. Your employees will take their lead from you. If you and your managers remain calm, employees will be less likely to panic.
• Remember your priorities employees first, data second, everything else after.
• Let your designated people take the lead. Check in with them to make sure they have the support they need.
• Execute your plan.
  
  

After an emergency you should:

• Locate and contact your employees. Find out what kind of assistance they need at home and, if possible, direct them to community resources.
• Keep them informed about when you need them to return to work.
• Contact your insurance agent to make any necessary claims. Give your agent a copy of your most recent inventory list.
• Execute your plan to secure any needed workspace, equipment, utility hookups, etc.
• Contact your customers. Find out what they need from you. Let them know when you will be up and running.
• Contact your suppliers and vendors. Find out as much as you can about their ability to keep you supplied with needed products and services. If necessary, begin to contact alternate suppliers and vendors.
• Review your budget and make the necessary adjustments to your revenue and expense forecasts.

Clearly, a little planning now will go a long way later. The more thorough your disaster recovery plan is, the sooner you will be able to:

• Get your business up and running.
• Serve your customers.
• Pay your employees.
• Contribute to the resumed functioning of your community.

Available Resources

E-Myth is pleased to announce that, as a member of the Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS), we are able to make various IBHS publications available to our E-Myth community for free through our Web site.

Please visit www.e-myth.com/disasterprep/, where you can download excellent disaster recovery and business continuity planning documents, such as:

• Open for Business toolkit
• Business continuity forms
• Getting Back to Business Brochure
• Property protection checklists
• Disaster plan folders

We highly recommend that you take advantage of these resources, which will not only save you time and money in planning for a disaster in advance, but will also assist you in getting back on your feet after a crisis has occurred.

A lot depends on you. Make sure you are prepared.