7 Safety Considerations for Your Business After a Disaster

When disaster strikes your area, it can put your business at risk. After a disaster, about 40% of all businesses don’t reopen. Worse, about 75% of all businesses without a continuity plan fail within three years.

If you want your business to survive a natural disaster, you need to make plans for how to handle all the risks your business will face. Here are seven different dimensions of safety you have to build into your emergency planning to help your business survive the next major disaster that strikes the Carolina Coast.

Safety of Your Employees

First, it’s important to take care of the safety of your employees. You must have an evacuation plan in place for different disasters and have procedures in place for when and how to declare an evacuation.

Have a communication plan in place to tell employees when they shouldn’t come to work. Give them options for remote work if it’s reasonable. Let employees know that they should not reenter any of your buildings or use any equipment unless it’s been cleared by a restoration professional.

Safety of Your Data

Many businesses run on data. Often, your information contains some of the most important assets of your business. If that’s the case, it’s critical for you to make sure your data is safe after a disaster. This means trying to have remote storage for your data, either cloud storage or regularly updated remote physical storage, depending on what makes the most sense for your business. Wherever you store your data, make sure it is secure and accessible.

Safety of Your Buildings

Many disasters can damage or destroy structures, including even very sturdy buildings. Do not assume that your building is safe after the disaster has passed. Floods, fires, and major storms can all weaken buildings in ways that may not be obvious at first. Even something as simple as turning on the light can shock you or trigger a fire if the electrical system has been damaged.

Before reentering your building, get it inspected and cleared by a commercial restoration professional who knows what damage to look for after a disaster.

Safety of Your Equipment

Disasters can damage your equipment in ways that will make it unsafe to operate. Don’t assume that you can simply turn machinery on after a disaster, even if it looks untouched. The presence of contaminants inside the machine or even a prolonged period of idleness without maintenance could damage some machinery. Even if the equipment itself is undamaged, the electrical system supplying it might be damaged. Don’t turn on machines before they’ve been properly inspected and restored.

Safety of Your Inventory

If your warehouse space was damaged, your inventory may have been damaged or destroyed. In some cases, the material might be a complete loss and there is no option but to hope your insurance covers the loss. In other cases, prompt action can sometimes save inventory, especially if the problem is water damage. By rapidly removing water, you might save inventory that didn’t directly contact the water, but if you delay water remediation, the presence of high humidity can lead to water infiltration and mold growth.

Safety of Your Supply Lines

Sometimes the biggest threat to your business is not the disaster that strikes your business, but the one that strikes your suppliers. If your supply line is disrupted, you might not be able to make your product or have inventory to sell. In planning for disasters, you should consider any supply line vulnerabilities and make contingency plans.

Safety of Your Contracts

When your business is supplying products or services to customers, you may find yourself unable to fulfill your contractual obligations after a disaster. If you have a good relationship with your customers, they will hopefully be understanding. You should also take steps to provide them with whatever reassurances you can. In particular, the sooner you can give your customers a timetable for when your business will be up and running again, the more likely you are to find they will work with you.

Plan for Disaster to Survive Disaster

As we mentioned above, 75% of businesses that don’t have a continuity plan will fail within three years of a disaster. To prepare your business for the worst, now is the time to make the important decisions that will keep your business viable even after the worst occurs.

There are several advantages to planning for disaster now:

• Train employees to be safe
• Have plans to protect property and equipment
• Set up safe remote storage of data
• Have plans in place for communicating with suppliers, customers, and investors
• Establish a relationship with a disaster restoration company so they can respond faster

When your employees know the evacuation and other emergency plans beforehand, they are more likely to be safe during a disaster. Making disaster plans in advance will help them take reasonable steps to protect your property and equipment during a disaster.

Having remote data storage set up early lets you know both that it’s safe and that it’s accessible. You might think that your cloud data will be easy to access after a disaster, but you don’t know for sure unless you test it now.

When you have communication plans in place for reaching out to suppliers, customers, and investors, you can get ahead of the news to take steps that protect your business interests. You can cancel orders you don’t need, let customers know you’re in charge and have a plan, and calm investors before they start a sell-off.

Finally, having a relationship with a disaster restoration company can make a big difference in how quickly you’re able to get up and running again after a disaster. When disaster strikes, everybody is looking for restoration services – if you don’t establish your priority status beforehand, you might find yourself without assistance.

Choose RestorePro

RestorePro is the leading restoration company offering services across North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. We have over 30 years of experience providing disaster restoration services to the region. We offer 24/7 emergency response services and will arrive shortly after receiving your call, ready to get to work right away. We can handle every step of the restoration process, and we’re prepared to respond to all major disasters, including fires, storms, floods, and contamination.

Contact RestorePro to start your disaster planning today.