With this in mind, a government- and company-sponsored business-preparedness seminar, making stops up and down California, is giving businesses the tools to stay open during the mayhem of a disaster's aftermath.
The Ready Sacramento one-day event in mid-April - the fourth of six statewide stops - attracted nearly 100 small-business, faith-based and nonprofit representatives to McClellan Air Force Base to talk best practices and business continuity.
Just getting to the conference room was an exercise in disaster mitigation in itself. Participants parked outside of the security gates on the far-east side of the Regional Homeland Security and Training Center, an extremely restrictive and fortified site, reflecting the day's somewhat serious tone.
By sharing their best advice and first-hand experiences, the seminar's speakers drove home the need for businesses to combat apathy - which prevents more than 70 percent of California companies from properly preparing - and set aside time to talk with co-workers and suppliers, think through vulnerabilities and chart an emergency plan.
"It's really an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure when it comes to this stuff," said Mark Ghilarducci, vice president and director of the Western States Regional Office of James Lee Witt and Associates, a Washington, D.C.-based crisis and emergency management-consulting firm. "It doesn't have to be very complicated; you just have to take a day or so to think things through."
Continuing Operations
The day's keynote speaker, Robert Lee, founder of Bordon/Lee Consulting, has worked in law enforcement and emergency management, both in private- and public-sector capacities, for close to 40 years, and brought to the table what he's seen that works.
But before drafting a plan, Lee said, businesses should evaluate human-caused, natural or technological risks that could befall them. Detailing hazards can help businesses raise awareness, nail down what's at stake and help itemize priorities, he said.
Some questions for businesses and nonprofits to ponder: What are your greatest hazards? What are your essential training and resource needs?
Once initial questions have been brought up and jotted down, it's time to jump into the actual planning part.
Elements of a viable business emergency plan include:
- outlining the operation's essential functions;
- delegating authority;
- finding alternate operating facilities;
- setting up interoperable communications;
- protecting vital records and databases;
- delegating tasks;
- testing the plan; and
- continually mending the plan to reflect the current environment.
"The companies who've done the best," Ghilarducci said, "are companies who've had a plan and exercised that plan."
Lee, who served as corporate security and emergency management director for Great Western Financial Corp. in Los Angeles for eight years until 1996, steered the company through the 6.7-magnitude Northridge earthquake in 1994.
During the incident, the tremor jammed the garage door of the fire department closest to the Western Financial building, stopping the station's fire trucks in their tracks. Lee reiterated the importance of organizations not counting on government help.
"Plan like they're not coming," Lee said. "Be as self-sufficient as possible for as long as possible."
Reflecting back, Lee shared what worked in Western Financial's emergency plan, including use of Los Angeles County's employee Emergency Survival Program (ESP) - an emergency preparedness awareness campaign that releases all-hazards preparedness steps to employees each
month - the implementation of the Incident Command System to designate a formal command chain; and the development of an equipment mitigation program to, among other things, prevent important documents from spilling off shelves - using clear fishing line is a cheap way to secure otherwise loose files, he said.
Ghilarducci also shared his best preparation advice: Back up important systems and materials; forge relationships with other business leaders to share resources during a disaster; leverage public-private partnerships; and establish contracts with secondary providers to allow for options.
During a disaster, both Ghilarducci and Lee said it's paramount to keep employees safe and happy (accounting for personnel will also ease stress), and to be flexible and understand you can't control everything.
"People will go through great lengths if you give them the basics," Lee said.
Hand in Glove
Churches, nonprofits and businesses - places where people work and gather - must prepare to stay afloat not only for their survival, but to pull others back on their feet after a disaster, Ghilarducci said.
"Because if you don't have businesses in place, operational and functioning, then the people who have been devastated by the disaster in the community have no place to go to help get themselves back online," Ghilarducci said. "It's sort of a hand-in-glove relationship."
For this reason, he said, getting business back on their feet after a disaster is one of government's top priorities.
Hurricane Katrina saw 18,700 Louisiana businesses go under, half of which won't recover. This compromised the greater recovery efforts of Louisiana communities, Ghilarducci said.
While big businesses carted in resources quickly after Katrina, small business (most American businesses fall in this category) struggled to work out supply-chain conundrums.
If given the wherewithal, he said, smaller, nimbler operations could beat out big businesses and government bureaucracy because they have little overhead and can regroup fast.
There's also outside help for local operations during disasters, Ghilarducci pointed out. The federal government's Small Business Administration provides low-interest loans to give a leg up to small businesses in declared disaster zones. And the Stafford Act now reimburses local nonprofits for offering people direct assistance in times of need.
However, businesses and nonprofits must still tailor their own disaster plans to get up and running until government can step in to provide assistance.
CaliforniaVolunteers, the volunteer and service agency charged with handling programs like AmeriCorps and Citizen Corps, partnered with the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, the California Office of Homeland Security, the Sacramento Regional Office of Homeland Security, Sacramento County Public Health and the Sacramento Region Citizen Corps Council to make the event happen.
The nonprofits, businesses and faith-based groups in attendance ended the day by filling out a sample emergency plan, and were encouraged to continually work to adapt the plan to their own operations even after they left the confines of the conference room.
"This is not a project," Lee said. "This is a process that will continue for a long time."
