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8 Steps to Create Strong Disaster Management Plans

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A core responsibility of any risk professional is planning for any possible disasters your business might face. These could be man-made, such as a data breach or accidents involving machinery, or natural, like a tornado or flood.

Disasters and crises affect different organizations in different ways—one company might consider something a catastrophe, while another may not even notice a change in its workflow. It is important to look at your own business operations and evaluate what you would consider a crisis. Generally, business crises fall into one of three categories:

  1. A danger to the physical safety of employees or customers
  2. Loss of income or means of making income
  3. Events or people negatively affecting your business reputation

In many cases, the crisis may fall into more than one of these categories. An accident in the workplace that is hazardous to employees can impact the company’s income because the factory has to shut down. This can also negatively affect the company’s reputation if it turns out that the company did not provide a safe working environment.

With even the best risk management programs, no organization can avoid all disasters completely. Risk mitigation often comes down to crafting the best plans possible for the moment disaster inevitably strikes. These eight steps can help risk professionals develop strong crisis and disaster response plans:

1. Define The Types of Crises You Could Face: There is not a one-size-fits-all approach to a crisis management plan. Working out what is likely to affect your business specifically can relate to your geography—areas that get hit by severe storms or earthquakes must include those potential disasters, and what knock-on effects they may cause. For example, storms may cause flooding, loss of power, or blocked roads that make it difficult to reach your premises. The type of crisis can also be specific to your industry. Employees in a manufacturing facility are likely at greater risk in a physical disaster than those working in a tax consultancy, for example. Security should also be a consideration. Is your business likely to get robbed of cash or equipment? Do you have high-profile proprietary information that makes you more likely to be the victims of cybercrime?

2. Triggering the Plan: Including levels of urgency in your plan will help people responding to the crisis pinpoint how significant the event is, and how much of the plan must be put into action. A step-by-step approach for specific scenarios can be helpful and cover dealing with man-made and natural disasters in different ways. The risk for each will be unique to the situation and knowing when and how to trigger a response is key. The plan should include how and when to escalate the response should the crisis worsen, as well as how to identify when the crisis has passed. It can be helpful to use red, yellow and green system to indicate severity and urgency, and this classification approach is easy to adapt to any scenario.

3. The Base of Operations Location: Accidents or natural disasters may cause your usual place of business to close temporarily or permanently. In your plan, designate a backup command center in an alternate location for dealing with the crisis until you can get back to work. This location can be your company’s operations hub, a point for gathering after a crisis, or where you know your sensitive and important data backs up. If a natural disaster has made travel dangerous or roads impossible to navigate, you will also need a virtual base of operations—some possibilities include message boards, chat apps or email. With so many employees working remotely because of COVID-19, this may be easier to implement now.

4. The Chain of Command: Ensuring a clear chain of command so that there is no arguing or confusion when people and the business are at risk. Wherever possible, appoint a back-up for each person in charge so if someone cannot perform their duty, it falls to the next in line.

5. Internal and External Communication: When a crisis compromises an office or business, communication can become tricky. Have a clear set of rules for how you get information to and from your employees, what information you must and must not share with those outside of the company, and how to achieve that. This part of your crisis management plan can save lives and stop rumors from spreading.

6. Necessary Resources: Though this will depend on the nature of the business, consider first aid and safety equipment if you are likely to have injuries or get cut off because of poor weather. Also, think about alternate communication methods if mobile phone towers go down or the electricity gets cut, as well as access to your sensitive data, such as employee contracts and supplier agreements.Include all necessary resources you would need to operate and highlight any alternate replacements. For example, if a storm knocks out your power, you may have a generator.

7. Training: It is no good putting a crisis management plan together and not giving the relevant people the training they need to execute it. For example, the people you name as first aid providers or unit leaders need to know what is expected of them and undergo the necessary training. If you have safety equipment on your premises, like fire extinguishers or emergency release valves for machinery, you need to educate all stakeholders how these work.

8. Testing the Plan: Finally, test that your plan actually works. Review it with staff and conduct safety drills regularly—every two months at least. Look for any weak points or flaws in the plan before an actual crisis.While it may not be possible to anticipate everything a disaster brings, you can set up several response plans and test each one individually. These plans can tie in with your standard safety drills, or stand alone, depending on the nature of the event anticipated.

A crisis management plan is integral to every business, no matter its size, scope, or sector. By preparing for various potential disasters, you can take action when needed without putting your organization, employees, or yourself at unnecessary risk. 

Keeping Parades and Events Safe for Businesses and Employees

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Holiday parades will be marching down many U.S. city streets during the next six weeks, with millions of revelers expected to attend. And while these are historically joyous occasions, safety is a top concern for businesses located near the festivities—especially considering the high-profile violence that has recently dominated headlines. Rezwan Ali, risk solutions group head of security at Falck Global Assistance, which advises companies about security, safety and travel risks, spoke about the challenges and best practices faced by businesses and employees located near parade routes.

Risk Management Monitor: How are companies responding to the rise in low-tech terrorism and violence?

Rezwan Ali: Companies have become more aware of the need for crisis management. Recent terror events in cities such as Paris, London, Las Vegas and New York have shown companies that duty of care is much more than just health and safety – it is knowing where your employees are traveling and aiding them if affected by terror or violent events. As companies become more globally oriented, their employees are required to travel more, which expands the company’s duty of care responsibility and creates a need for travel risk management. In recent years, there has been an increase in the demand for travel risk management, which originates in a company’s acknowledgement of providing duty of care services to travelling employees to mitigate the possible impact of attacks on the business, its reputation and employees.

RMM: What steps can businesses take to prevent disruption?

RA: The best way to mitigate disruption caused by terrorism is to be prepared at both the business and individual level. On a business level, companies should implement a crisis management process and a contingency plan. A crisis management process includes appointing a crisis management team and training the organization using various scenarios. The contingency plan provides guidelines on how to maintain business as usual when a crisis occurs and works in parallel with the crisis management process. On an individual level, training can provide employees with tools to cope with stressful situations and alleviate the impact of an incident. When employees know how to manage demanding situations, the effect on the company will also be minimized.

RMM: How can businesses located near a parade route or major event protect their employees?

RA: All businesses should have emergency and evacuation plans, which can be applied in the event of emergency. These plans should cover procedures for evacuating the office, safe areas and roles and responsibilities. Businesses located in areas identified as potential targets for terror attacks should incorporate specific emergency measures related to terrorism into their plans. They should also ensure that all employees know and understand that the emergency plans exist.

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These plans could include guidelines for what to do should a terror attack take place outside the office, as well how to react in the event of an active shooter. It is crucial that these plans and procedures are trained, exercised and tested.

Having an office in an area prone to various incidents requires the company to be informed of relevant developments. Sound intelligence can alert the company of an event, enabling quick initiation of applicable plans.

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Many companies use their network to provide intelligence or rely on local media to provide alerts. Regardless of the information, it is important to use trustworthy sources to ensure validity. The company can choose to develop a trigger system that determines whether the alert should activate any emergency procedures.

RMM: How likely is it that someone will be a victim of terrorism or violence during a large event?

RA: Although terrorism has severe consequences, the likelihood of being a victim of terror is low when compared to other risks such as traffic accidents and illness. The impact of a traffic accident on the individual can still be high, while the impact on the business will be minimal, in most cases.

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 What makes terror so dangerous is not likelihood, but the fear of it happening. Terror literally means “fear,” and it is the uncertainty and severity of terror that is pivotal for how we perceive it. Employees may express a somewhat irrational fear that must be addressed and taken seriously by the company, as it affects the employee and his/her work.

Moving Employees Safely is Critical in Oil & Gas Industry

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oil-rigs
The oil, gas and marine industry has always teetered on the brink of unfortunate circumstances. Oil rigs and oil tankers, by the very nature of their massive size and exposure to the elements, are susceptible to myriad dangers. And when those risks materialize, the safety of the men and women operating these maritime behemoths must take top priority.

In the case of a hurricane, energy giant Shell Oil says it begins evacuating non-essential personnel from offshore platforms and drilling rigs, starting with sites closest to the hurricane’s anticipated path. Like Shell, most of the larger oil companies have evacuation down to a science, particularly during hurricane season. In many cases the evacuation from oil rigs or oil tankers is highly manageable, with no more than a few dozen people having to be transported at times. Thus, in most cases, the evacuees can simply grab a taxi, book themselves into a hotel room, or make other similar accommodations.

But what happens when the evacuation is so immense that you are suddenly relocating thousands of workers to the nearest mainland?

In October 2014, with the threat of a cyclone ready to batter the Gulf of Mexico, Mexico’s state oil company, Pemex, evacuated 15,000 workers from more than 60 platforms in the Gulf of Mexico—all with the need to be transported and lodged.

Anticipating worst case scenarios is a prerequisite. Although travel by executives at the C-suite level in these types of companies is handled with the highest priority, to deal with the constant movement of lower-level workers, many companies enlist the services of travel management companies to coordinate getting personnel from land to rigs, tankers, drills and pipelines and back. This massive orchestration includes coordinating accommodations, lodging, weather alerts, translation services and other types of ticketing.

Certain industries, such as oil and gas, need to send employees to work in the world’s “hot zones.” According to a USA Today report, three Americans were among 38 workers killed in the 2013 siege of an Algerian gas plant in which Islamic terrorists used hostages as human shields after their attempted mass kidnapping for ransom went awry. Seven U.S. citizens survived the attack. This illustrates that the need to move crews swiftly isn’t always at the mercy of weather conditions. This is where a real-time knowledge of the current political climate is necessary, including the best exit points, and how to travel safely within those countries should the need to evacuate a facility arise.

Other times the challenge includes getting workers from a major airport to a remote location—perhaps where a helicopter undertakes the last leg of the trip out to the site. Oil and gas industry travelers also need to realize that the flight on a major airline to get into a somewhat unstable country isn’t the problem; it’s traveling within the country, where options are often very limited.

Fortunately, the recent boom in technology has helped make personnel travel safer, as they can now receive electronic alerts regarding risks such as natural catastrophes, labor strikes, and changes in flight schedules.

There is the potential for a number of problems to arise when operating these marine locations, both weather-related and man-made. And the cost of finding solutions to these situations can often be crippling and costly to a business, both in terms of valuable staff time wasted as well as the difficulty in finding the time or the resources to source viable, inexpensive travel alternatives.

Fed Program Initiates Life-Saving Training for Shootings, Terror Attacks

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The length of time victims wounded in school shootings and terror attacks must wait for help from an EMT could be minutes or hours—during which time they could bleed to death.

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This has happened in a number of cases, including a shooting at an Orlando nightclub in June, when a woman bled to death while waiting for help to arrive.

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These incidents have prompted the Department of Homeland Security’s Stop the Bleed campaign, a nationwide initiative to empower individuals to act quickly and save lives in emergency situations. Bystanders are asked to take simple steps to keep an injured person alive until medical care is available.

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Security guards, custodians, teachers and administrators are being trained at schools and other places to administer first aid until help arrives.

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Stony Brook University Hospital’s trauma center is spearheading training for school districts and colleges across the country. According to the Associated Press:

At a recent training session, paramedics and doctors brought in fake body parts—blood spurting from the wounds—to show staffers of a Long Island school district how to tie tourniquets and pack open wounds with whatever they have.

“Seconds matter. It really can be minutes when you can lose your life,” said Dr. James Vosswinkel, the chief of trauma and emergency surgery at Stony Brook University Hospital, who led the training.

Doctors emphasized that in the critical seconds after an attack it’s important for teachers and other school staff to stay calm and begin assessing injuries. Teachers learned to apply tourniquets in case a student is shot in the arms or legs—using T-shirts or belts, if necessary—and to stick anything they can to pack wounds in the torso.

Stony Brook doctors have reached out to local schools to offer the training, but are looking to expand the program as part of a federal Department of Homeland Security initiative to other schools, colleges and police departments across the country.

“Nobody should die from preventable hemorrhage,” Vosswinkel said.