Disaster Planning

A disaster is an incident or event which: threatens personnel, buildings or the organisational structure of an organisation.

Disaster Planning

A disaster is an incident or event which: threatens personnel, buildings or the organisational structure of an organisation.

What is a Disaster?

A disaster is an incident or event which:

Types?

The most critical natural and man-made emergencies and disasters that can lead to business or family life interruption can be broken into five (5) spheres:

Natural :

Man-made :

Crisis Phase

Emergency Response Phase

Recovery Phase

Restoration Phase

Crisis Phase

Emergency Response Phase

Recovery Phase

Restoration Phase

Disaster Preparedness

Pack an Emergency Preparedness Kit

Ready.gov recommends you have at least three days’ worth of food, water and medications on hand. They also provide a list of items to include in your disaster kit:

Drinking water (at least one gallon per person per day)
Nonperishable food, such as canned veggies and protein bars
Manual can opener
Flashlights or portable lanterns and extra batteries
First aid kit
A crank- or battery-powered radio
Sanitation supplies: toilet paper, moist towelettes, soap, trash bags and disinfectants
Local maps

Depending on your situation, your kit might also include:

Create and Practice a Business Continuity Plan

Family Disaster Plan

Your family needs a clearly outlined plan to follow that helps keep everyone safe during a natural disaster or an evacuation. According to Ready.gov, the four primary factors that your plan should account for include:

Where to shelter
A route for evacuation
Getting emergency alerts and warnings
Family communication

As you're creating your disaster plan, keep the following preparation elements in mind:

Sign up for severe weather alerts in your area.
Program emergency numbers into your phone.
Decide on a meeting place for your family to gather.
Plan escape routes from your home and neighborhood. Remember, roads could be blocked in large-scale disasters. Have at least one alternate route — or more if possible.
Be sure all adult and teenage family members know how to shut off gas, electric and water lines if there's a leak or electrical short. Keep the necessary tools easily accessible, and make sure everyone knows where these are.
Consider learning CPR and first aid training.
Remember your pets. Bring dogs and cats inside during a catastrophe or make a plan for how you'll evacuate with

Business Continuity Plan

Business Continuity Planning, that is, planning for recovery from a disaster, aims to:

manage the risks which could result in disastrous events and thus minimise the likelihood of a disaster occurring;
reduce the time taken to recover when an incident occurs; and
minimise the risks involved in the recovery process by making the critical decisions in advance in stress-free conditions.

Critical decisions made during the stress of a crisis have a high risk of being wrong, ineffective, and costly.

Although the likelihood of a disaster occurring at a specific property is low, it could, and does, happen at any time. The problem facing businesses is what to do when their premises are left unusable for an unacceptable length of time. The intention will be to restart essential operations with a minimum of delay within an acceptable length of time, probably with a reduced capacity in temporary premises.

Businesses in particular, need to know what is expected from them during and immediately after a disaster, before full restoration of existing facilities. Business units need to determine their minimum requirements and agree the recovery Plan before businesses can make their own Plans to support the recovery.

Features of a Business Continuity Plan

Business Continuity Planning has three complementary features:

Risk reduction - the management of risks to prevent a disaster. This is done by identifying and assessing the risks faced by a Department at their premises which could result in a disaster;
Emergency Plan - crisis management of the incident when it occurs (Incident Control) to prevent it from developing into a disaster, and to lessen its impact. The priority is to evacuate staff and others when this is necessary, but essential or valuable information and objects can often be rescued without risk to personal safety;
Business Continuity Plan - a Plan for the fast, efficient resumption of essential business operations by directing the recovery actions of specified recovery teams. The three elements to consider are the continuity of:
office services - premises, furniture, stationery etc;
information technology - communications and computing services; and
human and other resources - ensuring that staff:
are aware of the alternative arrangements;
have the resources they need; and
are productively employed.

The key tasks in Business Continuity Planning are to:

identify which operations and supporting activities need to be restarted after a disaster, the maximum acceptable time limits by which they must restart, and the resources needed to restart them;
identify contingencies for the required resources;
select a cost-effective strategy for restarting operations;
develop the BCP to guide and direct the restart of operations;
test the BCP, train staff in how to use it, and keep it up to date.