Is Your Small Business Ready for a Natural Disaster? (Part 2)

11/12/2019 (Permalink)

Having and executing a plan to survive and thrive after a natural disaster can keep your small business going when others fail.

If you’re not prepared, natural disasters—like storms, floods, earthquakes or wildfires—can cripple your small business. But with preparation and planning, you can return to normal operations sooner rather than later.

If you have followed steps 1–3 in Part 1 of this series, you’ll be ready to create a series of plans to follow when disaster strikes so that you and your employees survive the disaster, communicate effectively to your customers, retain your data and minimize costly downtime.

4. Create Your Emergency Response Plan

If a natural disaster strikes, your emergency response plan will help you spring into action without delay. In this plan, you’ll detail how you will protect employees and customers during the disaster, how to evacuate and where you will rendezvous. Decide how you will manage business operations and communications in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. Identify trusted outside resources, like SERVPRO® of West Hartford, that can help you quickly and thoroughly repair damage to your building and property.

Once you have a plan, communicate it to your employees and practice it.

5. Know How You Will Communicate

Create a crisis communications plan for how you will stay in contact with employees and customers. Select a spokesperson (and a backup) for each group. You may want to draft boilerplate messages ahead of time to speed up the process after a natural disaster, when every minute counts.

6. Protect Your Data

It’s wise to back up your data—financial information and other essentials such as customer records —regularly. Using two methods—internally on a physical drive and externally in the cloud—offers the best protection against data loss.

(Consider adding data compromise coverage to your business insurance policy. This can help you with the financial or legal burden if information is lost, stolen or accidentally released.)

7. Plan for a Return to Normal Operations

Write a continuity plan to detail how your business will continue to operate after a natural disaster. Consider how you’ll recover lost data, communicate with customers and suppliers and fulfill your orders and service contracts.

You should have sufficient insurance coverage in place before a natural disaster. Business property insurance may help protect your company from substantial losses, while business interruption coverage may help reimburse you if you’re temporarily unable to operate your business.

For commercial cleaning and disaster restoration needs, call SERVPRO of West Hartford today at 860-216-2785

Help Is Here

In addition to offering commercial cleaning services, the team at SERVPRO of West Hartford has specialized training and experience in water damage restoration services, fire and smoke damage restoration services, biohazard cleanup and natural disaster prevention and cleanup. Call SERVPRO of West Hartford (860-216-2785) any time.

Other Helpful Blog Posts

SERVPRO publishes educational articles on how to protect your home or business from disasters and how to deal with water, sewage, storm, mold, fire and other damage.

SERVPRO of West Hartford
716 Oakwood Ave, West Hartford, 06110
IICRC Certified
Noemi DiCristofaro 
Certified SERVPRO technicians
Call 860-216-2785
24-hour emergency service

For commercial cleaning and disaster restoration needs, call SERVPRO of West Hartford today at 860-216-2785