When your business is hit with a flood or other disaster, will you be prepared? If you’re not ready, you stand to lose a lot of money–possibly even the entire business. Save yourself a lot of money and headaches by having a plan for managing a disaster and keeping your business up and running. There’s no better time to create a plan than right now, before you need it.
A solid plan identifies potential hazards and outlines the steps you’ll take in responding to and recovering from an emergency or disaster. Emergencies can be routine interruptions to your daily operations as well as major disasters. They can be caused by a natural occurrence, such as an earthquake, or something as simple as pipes that have burst and caused sprinklers to go off.
Some of the essential components of a plan include:
- Contact information for resources such as utility companies, a disaster restoration contractor, plumber, electrician, elevator contractor, HVAC contractor, security guards and more.
- Internal information, including chain of command as well as names and home phone numbers of office managers or other assigned contacts.
- Locations of systems within the building (i.e. sprinkler, security, smoke evacuation controls, and emergency lighting and power).
- Names and phone numbers of local real estate agents and nearby buildings with vacant space.
- Step-by-step instructions for securing your building, executing important tasks and dealing with specific dangers generated by the disaster.
Don’t make the mistake of being without a disaster management and business continuity plan you can count on. A lot of research thought and time go into creating a thorough plan, so consider hiring a specialist to develop yours. When (not if) an emergency strikes your business, the value of being prepared is priceless.
For more information about business continuity and disaster management planning, see Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning: The Basics.
You can also call the companies represented by the authors, Certified Restoration and Firestorm. The two firms have teamed up to address your emergency needs.
– Michael Fahouris and Jack Boyles
Michael Fahouris is founder and president of Certified Restoration. He began his career in the cleaning and restoration industry over 20 years ago. Since then, Michael has completed hundreds of cleaning restoration projects, working with property managers, insurance agents and adjusters. He holds numerous certificates with the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IIRC).
Jack Boyles is a business continuity planning and implementation consultant with Firestorm. He is a certified Business Continuity Professional and has helped many companies develop their plans to be ready when needed. Jack is a strong believer in being prepared at home and at work.
