A Guide To Setting Up Your Pre-Disaster Plan Today!

In the event o f a fire, severe weather or other disaster events causing property damage that threatens the health and safety of employees or your property, being prepared is extremely important. As a commercial building owner or manager, hopefully, you already know that having proper procedures in place can be the difference between business survival and closing the doors permanently. While response to these events is key to preventing loss of life and loss of property, these disaster plans need to be in place before a disaster takes place.

• Be Sure a Disaster Plan Is Properly Completed and Available.
  One of the greatest challenges that can face an emergency response is a simple lack of coordination and communication among those who are actively involved in the event; by having proper coordination, chains of communication, and easily accessed information on the proper contacts, a pre-disaster plan can save time when minutes, or even seconds, could mean avoiding higher property damage costs, as well as injury or the loss of life.

• Natural and Manmade Disasters Are Different – Know the Difference.
  Natural disasters, and those caused by human action, carry different levels of preparation and response strategies based on factors such as electrical wiring, storage of any volatile or hazardous chemicals on your property, and much more. They also carry different insurance policies, and appropriate rates, as well as different agencies and state services to call.

• There Are Many Resources Available – Use Every Possible One You Can.
  Depending on your state, the size of your commercial building, and the type of businesses that it contains, there are numerous resources that may be available to you which can assist in the pre-disaster planning process. Businesses which deal in any sort of hazardous or potentially hazardous material, for example, should already be aware of regulatory bodies which govern their storage and usage. Those same agencies may also have pre-disaster planning protocols and tools that companies should take advantage of.

• Access a nd Proper Delegation Are Extremely Important.
  Proper access to equipment, materials, and other property which can be damaged can be crucial to prevent monetary loss. For example, access to servers to make necessary preparations, such as securing the physical server location, may prevent expensive damage to equipment. Access and delegation are part of response coordination efforts, and ensures that tasks can be quickly completed without overlap or the risk of missing vital procedures. Designating these response tasks well ahead of time is part of proper pre-disaster planning.

• Professional Disaster Recovery Contractors Can Help Save Your Business.

From a small water damage situation to a major flood or fire, properly trained and skilled disaster recovery companies have the equipment, manpower, resources and expertise to get you back up and in operation again. Many even offer a PREP program which provides pre-disaster mapping and collection of critical building information – even putting that data into a secure cloud software – so you and they can know where and how to respond to your disaster.

This is only a very partial list of the stages involved in pre-disaster planning, but they are suggestive of the level of detail and attention that should go into the process for the best outcome. There are specialized agencies and private sector planning services (PREP) that can help compile and build your pre-disaster plan. So you never have to be in doubt about the scope or capability of a disaster plan, Rocky Mountain Restoration can provide you with a detailed pre-disaster plan.