Disaster or Temporary Setback?

Not every event that could be disastrous necessarily ends up being so. How quickly you recover from an event has a direct relationship with how well you prepared.

Mother nature can wreak enough havoc with wildfires, floods, hurricanes, snowstorms and the like. However, have you considered what businesses near you can cause you problems? The XYZ Company down the street that produces or stores large volumes of dangerous chemicals could cause the evacuation of the entire area. Not only shutting you down but also, keeping you closed until a thorough decontamination can be completed. Ever tried to decontaminate a ¼ mile square area? It takes a while.

Sewer systems back-up causing raw sewage to flood large areas. What would happen if your business were flooded with raw sewage? Is there a dam up-stream from you? According to FEMA over 50% of the dams in the U.S. have structural problems (but, they’re working on it).

By the way, any nuclear power plants within 150 miles? Are you certain nobody in the immediate area has a methamphetamine lab that could explode?

When I was an Operations Supervisor at Mercy Ambulance in Las Vegas we received a call early one morning about a “Leak” at a Mfg. plant in Henderson. The leak was chlorine gas and the cloud quickly covered most of the city. The only option was to have all residents and business “shelter in place”. That means stay inside, keep windows and doors closed, turn off all sources of outside ventilation and by the way, try not to breath.

If you had to shelter in place with all of your employees for say 8 – 12 hours, how well do you think you would manage? Do you keep any food or drinks around?

Yes, I know, stuff like this only happens to other people and could never happen to you. Just pretend for a moment that it did happen to you. How would you manage it?

Plan for all contingencies you can possibly imagine and the ones you can’t imagine.

Here are a few areas where many businesses find holes in their emergency plans.

1. Review your insurance policies and make certain you are covered for the contingencies you identify (What? Our policy excludes earthquakes!)

2. Consider what back-up communications are in place or need to be established for both voice and data.

3. Test alarm/warning systems. One company conducted its first test of a sophisticated alarm system after 21 years. It played Christmas music instead of alarm bells.

4. How would you access important personal information in an emergency i.e. home phone numbers, next of kin, etc.

5. Where will everyone meet for an accurate head count after an evacuation? Are you going to send firefighters into a burning building to look for someone who went home?

6. Mutual aid agreements. Neighboring businesses allowing reciprocal use of resources during an emergency.

7. Designate a (trained) public information officer. Someone who will provide the media with your version of the story.

8. Consider contractual arrangements with vendors for post emergency services.

9. Take digital pictures of everything and I mean everything.

10. Practice, practice, practice. Many companies have excellent emergency plans but never have a drill. (Trust me when I say, “the first one is never pretty”.)

Make sure you have the stuff you’ll need in an emergency on-hand. You’d be surprised how often the power goes out and nobody even has a flashlight or a battery operated radio. Your first aid kit needs to have more than a few Band-Aids in it. Do you store a quantity of Tyvec coveralls, pullover rubber boots, gloves, hard hats, respirator masks, etc. This stuff isn’t expensive and you don’t need a lot of it.

by Brian Scales

Note: A former Paramedic and Emergency Services Manager, Brian Scales teaches workshops and does safety consulting on Emergency Management for Businesses as well as Emergency Preparation. You can contact Brian by phone at 877-208-3109 or send an e-mail to brian@allsafetyproducts.biz

Copyright All Safety Products, Inc. 2003 Reprint Permission should be directed to Brian Scales (E-mail: brian@allsafetyproducts.biz)