The Recent Pacific Northwest Inclement Weather and Snow Events Remind us that Response Plans are a Requirement!

The media has been filled with stories about snow and more snow, freezing temperatures, high winds, broken water pipes, collapsed roofs and fires of late.  These events have disrupted a lot of businesses in our area.   I wonder how many of those businesses affected by these events had a response plan to deal with the situation.  Do you have a response plan that is part of your overall business continuity plan?  Sadly, the majority of existing plans that I review for our clients / prospects do not have a response element in place.  The above topics serve as a reminder as to why an organization should have a response plan.

Response can be defined as, the reaction to an incident or emergency to assess the damage or impact and to ascertain the level of containment and control activity required.  Response planning should address the policies, procedures and actions following an emergency.  This needs to be done in advance and in anticipation of an emergency – yes, even a weather related incident.  It needs to define the proverbial who, what, why, where, when and how,

Examples of actions and measures that need to be predefined include:

• Response procedures to minimize harm to personnel and assets.
• Incident management processes to control and mitigate damage to facilities and equipment.
• Crisis management strategies to address operational, service, and public image impacts of an event.
• Crisis communications tactics to address who and how information will be managed and communicated.

The primary goal of the response stage of a business continuity plan is to manage the disaster from the beginning and to position your organization for the resumption of business.  Once again, defining in advance and making sure you have the right people, in the right place, and at the right time will go a long way to ensuring your recovery.

In the meantime, for those of us in our area that have predefined our “Sight Emergency Response Teams” perhaps we should consider renaming them for the time being to the “Snow Emergency Response Teams”…..