Tag: Agility Recovery

Emergency Alerts and Communications

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You’ve heard that jarring emergency alert sound, coming on the TV or on your cell phone, right? Something like BRRRRRRRKKKKKKK. BRRRRRRRKKKKKKK. Usually, the message that follows is: “This is a test.” Or it could be an AMBER alert about a kidnapped child.

Ever stop to think about where these emergency alerts are actually coming from? These days there could be several sources. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Emergency Alerts at the federal level

We’ll start with a simplified description of the federal system. If you want more detail, head to the Federal Communications Commission site. From there, you can go deeper and ever deeper into the subject.

The Emergency Alert System (EAS) was first set up in 1997.

Its purpose was to allow the President to speak to the American public during a national emergency.  The program is run jointly by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). Some 77 radio stations across the country, equipped with special back-up capability, send out EAS messages. EAS messages can also go out over TV, cable TV, wireless cable, satellite and video.

In 2012 a second level of emergency messaging went live.

The Wireless Emergency Alert system (WEA) can send messages to specific locations (“geo-targeting”) and devices using – you got it – wireless technology. If your cellphone is WEA enabled, you may get an emergency alert – but the person standing next to you, whose phone is NOT enabled, may not receive it!

Action item: Find out if your cellphone is WEA-capable. Not all wireless service providers offer WEA on all their devices. https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/wireless-emergency-alerts-wea

And be sure that in addition to your cellphone you have at least one (preferably more) working emergency radios! For a thorough discussion of the different kinds and the features they offer, please take a look at Emergency Plan Guide’s own Emergency Radio Reviews. (You’ll see photos of some of the radios we own!)

OK, those are basics for widespread, official alert messages. If you hear one, you’ll probably pay attention. Fortunately, they don’t come too often.

Emergency Communications at the local level

A second source of emergency alerts is likely to be your town or city. Every day, for example, communities experience fires, security breaches, power outages, accidents, and severe weather. These localized emergencies may impact many people – residents, transportation services, health care facilities, businesses, etc. 

Cities, towns and counties are required to have emergency management organizations and to develop emergency management plans for the continuity of the government and the safety of residents. And many cities set up programs to help their citizens be more prepared in emergencies – programs like CERT.

Examples of some local emergency alert systems

So how do cities let people know that there’s a local emergency? It all depends . . . For example, here are some of the city/county systems I came across in preparing this article:

  • Santa Clara County (CA) sends text messages to residents via AlertSCC.
  • San Francisco has AlertSF as well as a public loudspeaker system.
  • The City of Pittsfield (MA) has installed CodeRED that can send out phone, text and email messages to thousands of its residents, in minutes.

Here in our city we have a similar, county-wide alert system. One of the challenges – unlike EAS or WEA, which go out automatically — people have to actively sign up to get on the local alert lists in order to be notified! (Sadly, since our system is relatively new, only a small percentage of people have gotten around to signing up.)

Action Item: Find out if your city or county has an emergency alert system. How comprehensive is it? (phone, email, computer, etc.) Do you have to sign up to get the emergency messages?

Emergency Communications where you work

A third source of emergency alerts could be your work. It it experiences an explosion, a power outage, a crash, data breach, an active shooter incident, etc., how will employees find out what’s happening? How will they know what to do? What about families, customers, neighboring businesses, and the media?

Not having a plan for managing crisis communications is a recipe for disaster. (At the very least, legal disaster! The most likely charge if someone is damaged?  Negligence.)

What to look for in a business crisis communications system

So what should your crisis communications plan include? Start with this basic list to see what you might need:

  1. Your messages need to get out without delay – even if the disaster happens at night or on the weekend. This means having a number of pre-written messages “on the shelf” that crisis team members can readily access. In particular, any messages that might reach the media should be crafted in advance.
  2. Messages need to be able to reach everyone, one way or another because one way may not work! This means email, phone, and text at a minimum. Messages need to be short and simple (no acronyms) and, if necessary, in more than one language.
  3. People need to be able to respond – that they are safe, that they have evacuated, that someone is injured at a given location, etc.
  4. Can you target your messages to just one location, one level of management, etc.? Just as you want to reach everyone who is in the danger zone, you don’t want to necessarily upset people miles away.
  5. Can you make the system work at the critical time? Is it easy to learn and easy to operate? (Many companies use their crisis communications systems for more everyday purposes, just to be sure more people know how it functions.)

Action item: So how well does your current business emergency communications system stack up?

If you think some improvements might be in order, follow up with these two resources.

  • Capterra reviews all kinds of business software. Here is a link to their 2019 list of emergency notification software programs. Fifty-one different programs/services are reviewed!  (One of the services on this list is used by my own community association. One-way messages only, to my home phone.) You’ll get a good idea of what’s available by reviewing even a few.  https://www.capterra.com/emergency-notification-software/
  • I went further and took a free, half-hour personal “guided tour” of one of the systems. Preparis was recently purchased by Agility Recovery, a company I’ve admired for years. If you are truly in the market for emergency communications system, I recommend you contact Agility and ask for a demonstration. Watching how the system works, and being able to ask questions, will give you a much better understanding of just how it might work for you and your company.

I encourage you to give your company the tools it needs to protect employees, property and reputation by having a stronger emergency communications plan.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. You know that sound that you hear as part of an AMBER alert? It’s called a “header burst” and is followed by an “attention tone.” These sounds were selected because they are so jarring and unpleasant! Oh, and by the way, advertisers or entertainers or anyone who misuses the tone can be sanctioned and fined.  (I read about one fine of $1 million!)


Reliable information

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I’ve had to do a lot of research for my Advisories and my books.

If you take a quick look at our Advisory archives you’ll see topics you may never have really thought about! I certainly hadn’t thought of them all when they came up . . .

Consider these issues, for example:

  • Best respirators for after a forest fire
  • How to know if your home is vulnerable to landslides
  • How are drones being used in disaster response?
  • Will this fire extinguisher work on this fire?
  • Insurance for volcanoes
  • Are you within the range of a nuclear reactor emergency?
  • Front office security – are you liable as owner?

When I first started, it’s probably safe to say I knew very little about any of these. (Well, I DID know something about security in the workplace.)

Now, however, after writing not once but in some cases several times on these topics, I feel that I am pretty knowledgeable. Maybe even better,

Now I know where to go to get reliable information!

Here are three of my favorite sources. I recommend them to you.

  1. NFPA. Anything to do with fire prevention, statistics, standards, careers, education for children – The National Fire Prevention Association has global reach and its site is an amazing treasure trove. I also subscribe to their newsletter. The illustration for this Advisory came from NFPA.
  2. Agility Recovery protects businesses against interruption and disaster. I’ve followed the company’s growth over the past half dozen years, and taken advantage of their excellent webinars, case histories and other free resources they make available on their site.
  3. Earthquakes. Because I live here in California, where there are typically over 200 noticeable (over 5.0) earthquakes a year, I have a permanent link on my desktop to the United States Geological Survey Earthquake map. I check it often and read all the fine print!  (When we had the earthquakes over the 4th of July, the site was temporarily down because so many people were trying to find out just what had happened!)

I urge you to go to these sites if you’re looking for info on fires, business continuity or earthquakes. And if you are looking for information on other preparedness topics, please drop me a line. There’s a lot of misinformation or half-information out there and perhaps I can steer you around some of it to more reliable sources.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team


Day 23 of Summer Vacation: A time for some shorter and lighter Advisories as a welcome change-of-pace!


Power Outage in the Workplace

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Updated March, 2019

Power Outage in the Workplace

A Common Emergency Than Can Turn Into a Disaster

It’s Friday morning, you arrive at work and are greeted with . . .

“Guess what! Power is out!”

As people pull in and start to crowd around the front door, questions ring out. . .

  • “Who’s in charge?”
  • “Don’t we have a generator somewhere?”
  • “What about next door, is their power out, too?”
  • “Has the outage been reported?”
  • “How long will it last?”
  • “Does the boss know?”
  • “Shouldn’t we turn stuff off so it doesn’t all go on when the power comes back?”
  • “What was on?”
  • “What about the deliveries we’re expecting?”
  • “I have appointments today. Should I cancel them? Can we meet somewhere else?”
  • “Who’s in charge?”

Power outages are happening more often and lasting longer.

Inside Energy reported that in 2014 in the United States, the five-year annual average number of outages doubled every five years from 2000 to 2014.

Three years later, according to the US Energy Information Administration, the length of the average power outage nearly doubled from 2016 to 2017 – to almost 8 hours. Then came this addition: “. . .and the total duration of interruptions caused by major events was longer.”

Why the increase? Most notable: more and stronger hurricanes, massive winter storms, raging wildfires.  And lurking behind it all, the vulnerability of the grid itself.

We’ll be watching for statistics from 2018, and later for 2019, which has started out as bad or worse than ever before.

Note: Are you familiar with Allianz, the global insurance company? Their 2019 Allianz Risk Barometer now adds cyber incidents to the list of top business interruption risks.

A power outage in the workplace is a lot more problematical than one at home.

You may be able to get along at home because you have immediate access to extra food, clothing, etc. But to respond to a power outage in the workplace YOU NEED TO HAVE PREPARED IN ADVANCE!

Here are three simple questions you can use to start the preparedness conversation.

  1. What equipment will go off? Will it be damaged or dangerous if it shuts off suddenly?
  2. Who needs to know about the power outage? How quickly do they need to know?
  3. How will we communicate with employees, customers, suppliers, regulators and the news media when the power is out!? Who will do the talking?

Resources for planning for workplace outages.

Fortunately, there are some super resources out there to help out in this regard. One of the best is: Agility Recovery. Started 30 years ago, Agility is now serving businesses of all sizes in 44 states. While you may or may not be a candidate for their services, be aware that their website’s library has excellent videos and checklists for every business. The case histories of specific industries (banks, healthcare) are particularly interesting.

Agility has been on my radar for a couple of years now. I’ve attended their training webinars online and talked to several of the sales people, with very useful results.

Four suggestions for taking action to prepare for power outages in the workplace.

1- If the questions in this Advisory have hit any nerve at all, head over to Agility and grab Agility’s free Power and Generator Checklist. You’ll see a complete list of things to do BEFORE an outage, with specific questions to ask your electrician. The checklist adds safety recommendations as well as steps to increase security during an outage.

2- If you’re concerned about having some basic equipment available to help you through the outage — like lighting, power for computers, or a generator — check out our Emergency Plan Advisory: Fire related power outage

3- If it’s time your company considered the bigger picture, I recommend our own book: Emergency Preparedness for Small Business

It too has checklists – many of them! They start at the very beginning to help you get over procrastinating, identify ALL the possible risks (not just power outage), and get you started on pulling together a real business continuity plan step by step. (We describe Joe’s secret weapon that he discovered and developed when he was in military intelligence.)

4- In any case, consider assigning someone from your company to attend the upcoming webinar being offered by Agility on May 15, 2019, 12 – 1 p.m. MT. These webinars last just one hour, and are crammed with interesting info. May’s topic:  Ask the Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery experts. You can reserve your spot here: https://www.agilityrecovery.com/event/free-webinar-ask-the-bcdr-experts/ 

(In case you’re wondering if I have any particular affiliation with Agility Recovery, I don’t. As you know, I am constantly researching resources, and I simply feel very comfortable recommending them.)

With 70% of businesses anticipated to lose power sometime in the next 12 months, this is an important topic for all of us at Emergency Plan Guide. I urge you to take steps now to protect yourself and to keep an outage from becoming a disaster.,

Before you leave, please read the P.S. for just a few more examples of what happens when power goes out at work!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

P.S. We all have a good idea of what happens when the power goes out. At least, what we notice immediately. BOOM!  No lights! Meeting rooms, offices, halls, closets, bathrooms, stairwells – all dark except for emergency lighting.

But look a little further, and you may discover . . . .

  • Automatic gates and doors are frozen open, so you have no security.
  • Communications are down.  No landlines, no internet access, and the heightened potential for increased cyber vulnerability.
  • Bathrooms don’t work if you have power assisted toilets or water faucets.
  • UPS systems everywhere are pinging, pinging, pinging. (How long will they last?)
  • There’s no power to the kitchen = no coffee, no microwave, no refrigerator. (Medicines may be compromised, food starts spoiling immediately.)
  • Time clocks and timers may shut off.  (How to track employee time, industrial processes, scheduled communications?)
  • A/C and air handlers go off, same with pumps in the basement and any electricity-driven medical devices (Environment may become uncomfortable, even unsafe.)
  • Your out-of-gas vehicles can’t refill their gas tanks or recharge their batteries.
  • The only tools or pieces of equipment that work are those with battery backup or that run with rechargeable batteries. (What about dental drills? Auto repair tools? Restaurant stoves and freezers?)

What will happen in YOUR workplace when the power goes out? You need to know, so you can be prepared. Otherwise, this outage could truly become a disaster for the business.


Reliable Sources for Disaster Preparedness

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Car in flood

Keeping up with the latest — whether political news, phone technology, business trends or emergency preparedness — takes some effort.

It’s made easier when I find reliable sources that I can return to again and again. It’s made even easier when people take the time to send me the good stuff!

So today I’m sharing some preparedness and disaster recovery tips that I have recently received from favorite sources. Thanks to you all! (Please follow the links in each paragraph to get more on that topic.)

1-For Business Owners from Business Owners

Focus on Crisis Communications

I attended another  online webinar this morning, hosted by Agility Recovery: www.agilityrecovery.com  Today’s webinar was on Building a Crisis Communications Plan for business. I’ll be drafting a full Advisory based on my notes, but if you know you need this part of your plan, go grab this earlier version of their worksheet right now – https://www.agilityrecovery.com/assets/SBA/crisiscomms.pdf– and watch for my upcoming, updated  Advisory on this topic!

In the meanwhile, get to know this business preparedness and recovery service. I’ve found everything they do to be first rate. Over the past several years I’ve shared a number of things from their resource library. At their website, you’ll find:

  • Tips: Their “52-week Disaster Recovery” series.
  • Checklists: One of the best: Checklist for Power Outages and Back-up Generators. (Read the whole Advisory before you request the checklist. The questions in the Advisory are critical! https://emergencyplanguide.org/power-outage-in-the-workplace/.
  • Case studies. There’s likely to be a story about a business similar to yours since Agility has responded to thousands of emergencies. I was particularly captured by the story of Western Financial Group’s 2015 flooding and recovery.

I really can recommend Agility Recovery as a “reliable resource.”

2-For Homeowners from a Homeowner

Focus on Flooding – Wells and Septic Tank Systems

I live in one of the most well-planned communities in the country. (Some neighbors complain that it’s overly planned. That’s another story for another day.) In any case, all utilities here are underground; I had to look up images of “telephone poles” for my recent Advisory about power lines because I couldn’t just look out the window and see one!

As a kid, though, we lived a lot further out in the country, and we managed our own well and septic tank. We even strung our own phone and electric lines (probably without a permit).

So when I got an email this month from one of our readers, I was interested!  Jim McKinley –  www.moneywithjim.org   — offers smart money management advice.

The resource he sent for us is about preparing your family and home for a flood – in particular, preparing to protect your water supply and sewage treatment system. And the link takes you to a pdf published by the Canadian Province of Saskatchewan. The general info is likely to be review for most Emergency Plan Guide readers, but I found these aspects of the article to be particularly valuable:

  • Protecting your wellhead
  • Decommissioning well pits
  • Coping with groundwater flooding (lots of info on setting up drains)
  • Pumping out a septic tank or holding tank BEFORE flooding
  • Managing the soil of your private wastewater system AFTER a flood

You may not live in Saskatchewan, of course. And the property where I grew up, and maybe where you live, has long since been “connected to the city system.”

But it’s likely that someone you know lives further “off the grid” than you do. Or maybe you know someone whose vacation home has wells and/or a private wastewater system. Share this link!

https://www.wsask.ca/Global/Lakes%20and%20Rivers/Flood%20Watch/Preparing-for-a-flood.pdf

3-Finally, for anyone whose car has been caught in a flood.

From time to time over the years I’ve watched with concern and even horror as water crept up through the floorboards. But my cars have never been fully flooded.  How about you?

Once in North Carolina I rented a car for the day. We noted right away that something was amiss, and as the day warmed up – and we got farther and farther away from the rental shop – it became clear that the car had a real problem! It had been flooded!

Peeeee-yewwww! The smell was awful! Talk about car body odor!

If a car has been flooded, it’s usually considered a total loss by the insurance company. And it will be completely replaced. But, if you don’t have the right insurance, or the car wasn’t totaled, then you may find yourself trying to save it.

Once again, our friend Jim has directed us to an excellent online resource:

https://www.yourmechanic.com/article/how-to-reduce-the-damage-to-a-flooded-car-by-jason-unrau

And I’ll add to this article, part of which deals with eliminating odors. Yes, have and use plenty of baking soda. But in addition, consider this under-$10 specialty product:

This “sponge” doesn’t attempt to overpower the odor with another smell; it absorbs all odor.

If only we had had one of these in that rental car!

OK, that’s three tips for today. Maybe only one applies directly to you. But perhaps you have been inspired to think about other tips that you might share here. We welcome your suggestions!

 Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

P.S. Got an idea for a tip or for a full Advisory?  For a family, for a group, for a business? Just let me know and we’ll figure out how to get it published!  You can write to me directly at Virginia@EmergencyPlanGuide.org.

 

 

 

Power Outage At Work

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Some statistics for small business.

No Business PlanYou’ve seen the stats here before. Check out numbers from a June 2015 Nationwide Insurance survey:

  • 75% of small business owners say they don’t have a disaster plan. (This is UP from the 72% we’ve quoted before!)
  • 38% don’t even think a disaster plan is important.
  • Unfortunately, a business without a plan has a poor chance of recovery after a disaster. FEMA reports that 43% of them will never reopen, and another 25% will close their doors after one year. That means that after a disaster, nearly three-quarters of businesses without a plan will be gone.

Who knows what the numbers will tell us after the recent one-two-three punch from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria!

No matter what the exact numbers are, operating without a plan leaves your customers in the cold, your employees without a job, and your investment down the tubes.

If you don’t already have a plan, what might spur you to action? Consider this . . .

Let’s take a look at just one risk that you are surely familiar with.

One company we follow is Agility Recovery. As its name suggests the company offers recovery solutions – four main ones (office space, power, communications, computer systems).

In its 25 years of business, Agility has responded to one type of emergency more than twice as often as any other —

Loss of power!

Further, according to Agility Recovery,

  • Nearly 70% of businesses will lose power sometime in the next 12 months.

So, where does your company stand on being ready to withstand a power outage?

“Well, I think we have a back-up generator on premises!”

That’s a start. Again, thanks to some resources offered by Agility Recovery, Popular Mechanics and The Home Depot, here are

Ten questions for your next conversation about power outages at work.

  1. Do employees have emergency kits with flashlights? Are the batteries fresh? Are the flashlights hand-crank?
  2. Do you have emergency radios so you can get the news and weather? Again, fresh batteries, hand-crank or solar?
  3. Are electronics protected by a power strip surge protector?
  4. Do employees know what should be turned off in a power outage, and what should be left on?
  5. Are desktop electronics connected to a functioning UPS device so they can be powered down in a controlled fashion?
  6. Do you have a back-up generator for essential equipment?
  7. Do you know what equipment is considered “essential” and are you confident the generator can both START and RUN that equipment? (It takes 3 to 5 times more power to start up a motor than to run it.)
  8. Have you trained on where to place the generator when it is needed?
  9. Do you have the appropriate electrical cords and plugs for your needs? How long do cables need to be?
  10. Do you have fuel for the generator? How long will it last, and what are the plans for getting more?

Get the rest of the questions and answers.

These ten questions are really just a start. Any business other than a home office needs more information in order to do a good job of managing a power outage. You can get a more detailed checklist, plus see some of the case histories offered by Agility Recovery, at their resource library: https://www.agilityrecovery.com/resource-library/

Power outages are on the horizon, it’s just a matter of when.

Good luck!

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team