TelePacific Monthly

Emergency preparedness is often the elephant in the room: everyone knows it’s there and should be addressed, but no one wants to make the first move (which isn’t surprising, considering elephants can be mean when provoked). Preparing for emergencies can be a daunting task, we know. But if you think about it, it’s better to be prepared than bewildered when an emergency arises. At TelePacific, we don’t claim to be emergency preparedness experts, but we learned a few things in developing our own emergency plan and wanted to share some of the tips we found to help you prepare.

Four Steps for Emergency Planning

The first step is to establish a team to develop or update your emergency management plan. The team should develop a plan or evaluate and update your current plan. They should identify critical services, resources and capabilities to be addressed in the plan and determine what processes and backup systems are in place—or should be in place—in case of an emergency.

The next step is to conduct a vulnerability analysis. Also called a risk assessment, this will help illuminate the emergencies that could hurt your business most, and help you determine what elements of your operations should be strengthened. For instance, is your office located in a flood plain or on an earthquake fault? What would happen to your systems during a power failure? What if your phone lines were cut by crews doing unrelated utility repairs? You want to determine what’s at stake if your business is interrupted and how you can get back to “business as usual” quickly.

Then develop an emergency management plan. Prioritize the activities that will be needed to get your business back on track. Those could include determining a short-term office location, implementing redundant and backup systems to protect your data and equipment, establishing communication protocols so employee and customer communication is seamless, and working with your vendors and partners to learn how they can help you after a disaster. The point of your plan is to return your business to normalcy as quickly as possible, with as few hiccups as possible.

And, last but not least, implement the plan. This includes training your employees on where the plan is located, how to use the plan in an emergency and what to do if a situation arises that is not included in the plan. It’s important to conduct regular drills or tests of the plan and make changes if necessary. After all, you don’t want to be bewildered in an emergency...cool, calm and collected is a much better place to be.

Avoiding the Elephant

There are many resources available to help develop your emergency plan. A quick online search can get you started with templates and expert advice. TelePacific has a variety of services that can help you with disaster preparedness, too, from RemoteStor Data Backup to bonded T1 lines to colocation, remote access and call forwarding. We know it’s not fun, but if you don’t address the elephant in the room, it may eventually trample you...and that’s even less fun than preparing for an emergency.