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What to Do When Disaster Strikes
IMR, Sept. 28, 1998
April 14, 1995, was Good Friday, but for employees of Belknap Business Forms, a manufacturer in Mayville, N.Y., the only good thing about that day was that they were enjoying the start of a long weekend instead of working. While President J. Buster Weinzierl, CFC, was on a business trip, he heard the bad news: The company's main facility had quickly burned to the ground. By the time he got to the scene, there was nothing left. No equipment, no computers, no files, no building—and no disaster recovery plan. Weinzierl says it was "like someone had stuck a dagger in my heart and twisted it. It was devastating."
How did Belknap regroup and get back to work? Before the weekend was over, Weinzierl and his management team had roughed out a plan of action:
- Determine who will be on the recovery team
- Arrange to have an alternative site available as soon as possible
- Set up telephone lines in the alternative facility
- Contact the insurance company
- Arrange for alternative equipment, supplies and staffing
- Meet as soon as possible with employees to inform them of the situation and plans for the immediate future. Decide who is needed now and who will be needed in the future
- Tell customers, vendors and the community what is going on. Make sure everyone knows the company plans to overcome the problem.
"The conclusion we came to with our experience is that you have to have a predetermined location that will serve as your command center and a plan to implement communications, install telephones and so forth," says Weinzierl. He says it is critical to keep a daily or weekly back up of your computer records off-site so orders, invoices and other important information can survive.
Other disasters that might befall a business includes hurricanes. At Liberty Data Products, a distributorship in Houston, President Sam Young has a hurricane disaster recovery plan that includes off-site arrangements in Dallas.
"With a hurricane, you could be out one to two weeks," says Young. "The big thing is no power or phones anywhere in the area." Liberty Data Products arranged with one of its vendors in Dallas to use its site as a temporary location where telephone calls could be forwarded. Five of the 60 Liberty employees would stay in Dallas a few weeks to operate the temporary office until things were normal in Houston again. After the last devastating hurricane in Houston 15 years ago, Young considered buying a back-up generator to use in emergencies, but found it too costly for the size of his operation.