Preparing Your Business for a Natural Disaster

If you’ve ever had to deal with a significant disaster in your business, then you understand the importance of forward planning. Businesses are off to the hardest hit when there is a natural disaster because they are not often prepared for it to happen. Flooding, fires, hurricanes – mother nature can be a bit of a beast, and if you’re not prepared your business is going to suffer and could potentially shut down as a result. 

If you’re not aware of things like generator hire or waterproofing, tornado planning and data disaster planning, then you need to get ahead and start reading. Would like to share some of the practical ways that you can prepare your business for natural disasters and what you could do about them.

– Get to know your local area. If your business is built near a floodplain, then the one thing you can do is stop looking at flood protection devices. From warning systems that notify you when a rain bomb is on the way or when flood banks are starting the best, to ensuring that your basement and your office on the ground floor are sealed against heavy water flow, you can plan ahead for a flood. Even if you don’t own the building where you do your business, you can still take steps to protect your assets as much as possible. Identifying what your business needs to do to protect yourself in the face of a natural disaster is vital. Start with getting to know your local area and figure out any disasters that may have happened in the past 50 years

– Talk to insurers. You need to make sure that you review your insurance coverage to understand what’s not covered and what is covered. For example, most insurance policies don’t actually cover you in the event of a flood. You can pay for additional fly protection though, so if you’re in a flooding area this is something that you can do.

– Determine the production machinery that you need to protect. If you have machinery and other essential equipment needed to keep your business open, store the supplies offsite where you can make a plan for temporary relocation of it if your company is forced to close or relocate after the disaster. Utility disruptions are natural, but with a generator hire than we talked about earlier on, you should be able to mitigate this.

– Know your escape routes. Everybody should be prepared and ready in case a disaster should strike, so making sure that you are running escape drills in the event of a fire, flood or earthquake, is a smart idea to ensure that everybody is safe. Designate a safety person to communicate with other employees, customers and vendors should a natural disaster occur while your business is open. If you develop this playing with enough notice, everybody will be prepared should something happen. If you don’t have any escape routes, contact the fire department and ask them to help you with this.