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Business Continuity Awareness Week Takes On Emergency Preparedness

Resilience is constantly on the minds of risk professionals. If last year taught us anything—between ransomware attacks, natural disasters, and pandemics, just to name a few examples—it is that businesses have unlimited reasons to plan for major disruptions.

To help professionals address emergency preparedness, the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) has initiated the annual Business Continuity Awareness Week (BCAW), May 14 through May 18. The online event will feature 29 webinars tackling a variety of issues under the resiliency umbrella, including crisis leadership, workplace recovery and data breaches that will be hosted by BCI members and organizations such as Amazon and Google. Additionally, BCI will host three onsite launches for its organizational resilience manifesto in London, Toronto and Sydney.

BCI uses the global event as a vehicle to raise awareness of the profession and demonstrate the value effective business continuity management can have to organizations of all sizes. The organization is also hosting a blog writing competition and a photo face cut-out contest with Amazon vouchers for prizes.

Other resources include BC24, an interactive roleplay game where you and up to five colleagues can test your responses in an emergency and tackle the challenge of recovering after an incident. The game is designed to encourage critical thinking about the importance of decisions made in a crisis and demonstrates how these decisions can impact the wider organization. There is free access to the game for the month of May only.

In an effort to bring BCAW awareness into the workplace, BCI advises risk managers to initiate campaigns in their companies, with suggestions including:

  • Run an exercise. You can use BC24 or devise your own exercise to ensure that employees and colleagues are informed on what to do during an incident.
  • Host Q&A sessions. These can be in-person or on social media channels. Asking your staff important questions relating to your incident response strategies can help in identifying your training needs.
  • Circulate your documentation. Does your staff know where to find your business continuity plans? Why not circulate them to everyone, asking for feedback or questions.
  • Hold competitions. You put some fun into learning by holding your own contests. Devise a quiz relating to your business continuity plan, or even send staff members on a scavenger hunt for clues relating to an incident.
  • Host a webinar. BCI will host webinars throughout BCAW, however, there may be a topic relevant to your organization or discipline that it does not cover. You can contact the BCI with questions on how to host a webinar and the best ways to engage your staff.
  • Publish white papers. Every organization approaches disaster recovery in a slightly different way. You can share your analysis with staff members by publishing white papers from various disciplines. This raises awareness about resilience and helps employees understand your organization in more depth. You can email yours to BCI here, and it may publish via its news channel through BCAW.
  • Social media. Social media campaigns will be running throughout the week, asking questions about business continuity and organizational resilience. Tweet BCI at @thebceye with your BCAW activities to inspire other organizations.

2017 Storms Break Records

The 2017 hurricane season is finally behind us, but it left its mark with two Category 5 hurricanes and one Category 4 striking within weeks of each other, causing an estimated $300 billion in damage. In fact, 2017 broke records, including the strongest storm—Irma—and the longest-lasting storm, which was Hurricane Harvey.

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Other natural disasters in 2017 also did their share of damage, including hailstorms and 1,496 tornadoes compared to an average of 1,202.
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Then there were the wildfires, which burned more than 9 million acres of land.

Highlights of 2017 are summarized below by Interstate:

Jones Act Waiver Granted for Puerto Rico

A request to temporarily waive the Jones Act for Puerto Rico that was denied on Monday has been approved. President Donald Trump waived shipping restrictions on Thursday to help speed up fuel and supply deliveries to Puerto Rico, devastated by Hurricane Maria, the White House said.
Maria wiped out power on the island and destroyed infrastructure and cell towers, leading to massive shortages. Even though a waiver had been granted to Texas and Florida after Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, the Department of Homeland Security initially said there was no need to waive the restriction for Puerto Rico, as it would not address the issue of the island’s damaged ports.

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The Jones Act, or the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, was initiated almost 100 years ago to keep foreign-flagged vessels from shipping fuel and goods between U.S. ports. The last previous waiver was in December 2012 to allow petroleum products to be delivered for relief assistance after Hurricane Sandy.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., disagreed with the initial decision to deny suspension of the act for Puerto Rico. He wrote to the Department of Homeland Security urging it to allow a waiver and ultimately “a full repeal of this archaic and burdensome act.

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” Without the waiver, McCain said residents of Puerto Rico would end up paying at least twice as much for food, drinking water and other supplies.

Supporters of the Jones Act, including ship builders, have maintained that it supports American jobs, including jobs in Puerto Rico and keeps shipping routes reliable, according to Reuters.

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They also contend that the issue in Puerto Rico is distributing shipments across the island once they are delivered.

The temporary waiver was not a surprise, as Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello said on Wednesday that he expected the federal government to suspend the Jones Act. He said he had been speaking with members of Congress from both parties who supported an emergency waiver.

Flood, Wind Dominant Natural Hazards in 2016

While most natural hazards occurring in the United States last year saw average or below average activity, the exceptions were flood and wind, according to the CoreLogic report Natural Hazard Risk Summary and Analysis, released today.

Severe flood events driven by substantial rainfall were the dominant natural hazards, with Louisiana and North Carolina floods being the major loss contributors. As in 2015, hurricanes and tropical storms in 2016 continued to cause inland flooding through increased and intense rainfall—even when not making landfall, according to the report.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said there were 12 individual weather and climate disaster events in the U.S. with losses exceeding $1 billion in 2016.

According to the report:

  • Based on NOAA and CoreLogic analysis, the overall flood loss in 2016, driven by six, 1,000-year plus rain events, was approximately $17 billion, which is six times greater than the overall flood damage experienced in 2015.
  • The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recorded 943 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater in 2016, with more than 60 percent of these earthquakes located in Oklahoma.
  • The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) reported a total of 5,415,121 acres burned from 62,864 separate fires in 2016. While the total acres burned in 2016 fell below the 10-year average, significant losses occurred, with thousands of homes in California and Tennessee destroyed by several smaller fires that burned in populated areas.
  • Wind activity in 2016 was slightly above average, due in large part to strong winds brought by Hurricane Matthew.
  • Hail activity in 2016 was near the average, and Texas experienced the worst of this natural hazard.
  • Tornado activity in 2016 was near average compared with previous years.
  • Hurricane Matthew developed late in the year and grew to a Category 5 storm, resulting in substantial damage along the southeastern seaboard.
  • There were below-average levels of tropical cyclone activity in the western North Pacific Basin encompassing East and Southeast Asia in 2016.

However, 2016 became known as the year without a winter. Nine winter storms impacted the U.S. in 2016, the most notable being the late-January winter storm in New York.

“History has continually shown us that it is impossible to determine exactly when or where the next wildfire, flood or earthquake will strike, which is why preparedness, response and post-loss assessment are paramount,” CoreLogic said.