How to Prepare a Disaster Recovery Plan

Can your business withstand the effects of a natural disaster?

During a disaster, much of the attention is focused on the human element. However businesses also suffer greatly under such circumstances and can face total failure without a proper disaster recovery plan in place to mitigate the effects of the catastrophe. Just as parents develop disaster plans for their families, business leaders need to develop business recovery plans to ensure that their companies will stay afloat and be able to continue to provide desperately needed services, employment and stability in the aftermath of a disaster.

Instructions

1. Identify the disasters most likely to occur in your area--the local chapter of the American Red Cross can often help with this, as can area emergency management agencies. Predict how those disasters might affect your company's ability to do business during and immediately after the event. Remember to consider the possibility of man made disasters, such as acts of terrorism, or targeted disasters, such as the destruction of sensitive corporate data banks or crucial facilities.

2. Consider what, if any, impact the disaster might have on your workforce, members of which may be unable to report for work due to inability to travel and interrupted communications. Review the inputs needed to run your business in terms of public utilities such as water supplies, electricity, natural gas pipelines, or waste removal. Evaluate the impact of being unable to open for business for a period of time following the disaster. Address issues such as cash flow, mandated reporting and monitoring and supply and transportation difficulties, should you suddenly be thrust into a situation with no employees, no customers, no transportation, and no communications. Review whether your corporate insurance is adequate to cover catastrophic circumstances.

3. Make specific plans regarding the best way to continue your active operations in the event of one of the projected disasters. Create frequent back-ups of all critical data and store at a different location such as distant regional offices or on one of the online data storage systems. Determine how client needs can be met from offsite locations and whether key personnel should be relocated to perform such services. Plan how to prepare, secure, and quickly restore business at each of your locations in the face of an emergency. Review these plans and seek objective suggestions for improvements from your local emergency management officials, organizational leadership, and industry peers.

4. Finalize and formalize you disaster recovery plan. Hold mock tabletop disaster training scenarios where key officers in your company can brainstorm their responses to various disaster scenarios. Distribute the plan and require that employees become familiar with it. Work out the bugs and field questions while the sun is shining and all is well. Remember that the stress of an impending disaster often results in less than desirable decisions and outcomes.

5. Consider your disaster recovery plan to be the first step toward long term, post disaster business continuity. Remember that after dealing with the pressing logistics of securing your assets, facility and personnel, the focus will change to larger issues such as corporate image, regional and national implications of the disaster, and federal declarations affecting grants and recovery funding. Be prepared for both the short and the long haul with adequate disaster recovery plans and corporate continuity planning.

Tips & Warnings

• Maintain close contact with emergency agencies in your area. Excellent new disaster recovery models are often released via these channels first.

• Contact your corporate insurance provider to discuss your disaster recovery planning efforts. They may have resources in place to assist you and such a proactive stance may qualify you for special premiums.

• Always follow mandatory evacuation warnings. Your presence will not stave off a natural disaster and will only endanger you personally and potentially deprive your company of critical leadership in extremely trying times.

References

• Forsythe: Business Continuity in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

Resources

• Federal Emergency Management Agency: Emergency Management Guide for Business and Industry