New York SBDC Research Network

When large scale disasters hit an area, the infrastructure failure is particularly damaging to small businesses. Recent flooding in Louisiana points to a hard rule: when your business is cut off from clients, vendors and critical staff, the economic losses continue long after the cleanup is done. The key to protecting your assets and becoming resilient in the face of a natural disaster, cyberattack, or random power outage is having a solid business continuity plan. The cost of developing a plan is low, compared to the long-term financial losses that could occur when you’re caught off guard by a crisis. Learn how to build your own disaster preparedness plan during three free National Preparedness Month (NPM) webinars this month hosted by the U.S. Small Business Administration and Agility Recovery. The series is presented in collaboration with FEMA’s Ready Campaign , and the 2016 NPM theme is “Don’t Wait. Communicate. Make your Emergency Plan Today.” The hour-long webinars will...

The year 2015 began with a powerful nor’easter that dumped several feet of snow in Massachusetts, forcing major road closings and flight cancellations in the Northeast. In October, heavy rains in the Charleston, South Carolina area resulted in flooding that caused widespread losses. The year ended with deadly tornadoes and floods sweeping through the Midwest and the South. The factors that cause financial losses to small businesses exist every day. A solid business continuity plan will protect your organization and your assets while ensuring a quick recovery when a disaster occurs. Join Agility Recovery and the U.S. Small Business Administration on Tuesday, Jan. 12, for a free webinar that will take a look at how small businesses handled disaster-related losses in 2015, lessons learned, and the resulting best practices.

Let’s say you created an amazing disaster recovery plan for your small business, and you were able to reopen shortly after a ferocious storm. Meanwhile, your employees’ homes were damaged during the storm, and several roads are closed. So you’re open for business minus the team that keeps your operations running. Failure to inform and prepare your employees for disasters is one of many common mistakes entrepreneurs make when doing business continuity planning. Not being adequately insured is another oversight that can lead to the failure of your business. Get free tips on ways to avoid these and other costly errors at a free webinar hosted by Agility Recovery and the U.S. Small Business Administration on Tuesday, Dec. 9. True stories about business owners’ pre-disaster missteps, plans not followed and lessons learned will also be discussed. SBA has partnered with Agility to offer business continuity strategies through its “PrepareMyBusiness” website. Visit www.preparemybusine...

Whether or not your company’s financial house is in order has a big impact on post-disaster recovery.  Having a plan in place to save your organization’s assets from business interruptions will ensure a quick recovery, satisfied clients and long term-economic stability. Get tips on how to protect your core operations, revenue flow, and your company’s reputation at a free webinar on Thursday, Nov. 20, hosted by the U.S. Small Business Administration and Agility Recovery. The webinar will also cover essential planning strategies, with a discussion on how corporate preparedness can protect a company’s market value and establish financial resilience, regardless of whether the disaster comes in the form of a flood…or a lawsuit.

    U.S. insurer class action may signal wave     of climate-change suits     BY  MICA ROSENBERG     Fri May 16, 2014 4:17pm EDT Farmers Insurance filed nine class actions last month against nearly 200 communities in the Chicago area. It is arguing that local governments should have known rising global temperatures would lead to heavier rains and did not do enough to fortify their sewers and stormwater drains. The legal debate may center on whether an uptick in  natural disasters  is foreseeable or an "act of God." The cases raise the question of how city governments should manage their budgets before costly emergencies occur.       "We will see more and more cases," said Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in New York. "No one is expected to plan for the 500-year storm, but if horrible events are happening with increasing frequency, that ma...

Using Trade Associations and Expert Consultants in Disaster Planning and Recovery by  Mike Keating  | January 15th, 2014 Manufacturers can rely on trade groups and expert consultants in their disaster planning, says Michael Keating in his latest Expert’s Corner. This is Keating’s seventh article in the series on disaster planning and recovery . His series advises manufacturers what to do in disaster preparation and recovery. Source: http://news.thomasnet.com/IMT/2014/01/15/using-trade-associations-and-expert-consultants-in-disaster-planning-and-recovery/ Continue reading below the jump. 

I strolled through the paths of the web wilderness to cull some of my favorite lists of prepare, respond and recover apps for crisis and disaster management….but..you say…but what about...? But What About …No Cell Service? “Anyone that’s been through a   natural disaster   realizes cell service is often times one of the 1st things to go! Sometimes having good cell service is tough enough, so why would you bother downloading apps to your phone if a disaster is going to wipe them out? Well, a lot of these apps once downloaded do not need to be connected to the internet or have cell service to run them. Many are informational apps and will still be able to show you how to do CPR, act as a flashlight, or pull-up important documents as long as they have battery power.” source:  ( http://prepared-housewives.com/emergency-apps-that-might-just-save-your-life/ ) Of course, you can’t count on cellular, Wi-Fi service or power to charge your batteries during a disa...

Even savvy Business Owners realize that reacting to a disaster scenario requires employees to take a certain level of personal responsibility. Employees that know and adhere to their business disaster plan will still want to secure their families and cannot help your organization until they have stabilized their own survival needs. All italicized notes are mine~ BDS " Spies and certain military personnel have them. Even mobsters and other criminals have them. And you should have one too. I’m talking about a “Bug-Out Bag,” a ready-to-grab-at-anytime kit that gets you out the door and long gone, quickly and safely, when things go south. Even though you probably aren't going to have a foreign hit squad on your trail, or Federal agents ready to kick in your door, there are still a number of situations where the Average Joe needs to have a bug-out bag — or a “Get Home Bag” ( see below ) — packed and ready to go."

 Don’t lose your business to a power outage, hacker disruption, fire, flood, earthquake or other disaster.  A 2012 survey by Alibaba polled small-business owners to gauge how prepared they were to run their business if a natural disaster struck. The findings were alarming: 74% of American small businesses do not have a disaster preparedness plan; 84% of them are without natural disaster insurance. Preparation, an Active emergency and later, Recovery. Sadly for many businesses, Preparation is the missing component that could have lead to a successful navigation of an active emergency and a graceful navigation of Recovery. More than half of all businesses affected by a disaster level event will not reopen their doors.  In this series we will dive into the three pillars and offer you guidance and routes of assistance to help you plan, prepare and act when the time comes for you to shepherd your business and your employees through an unforeseen (but not an un-planned f...

From the DataCave : You know that when your business experiences downtime, your services, employees, and operations will be impacted, but have you ever been able to place a dollar figure on what that impact would be? The Cost of Downtime. Let our Downtime Calculator give you an answer! This tool takes several different factors into account, such as your business’ number of employees, sales volume, and how any amount of downtime you encounter could impact your bottom line. If you have ever experienced downtime in the past, this calculator can provide you with a financial estimate for the business impact it may have had. We encourage you to use this tool to get a good grasp on just how damaging downtime can be to your business, and to better educate yourself on the importance of having a disaster recovery plan in place

Business Continuity Strategies Offered at Free SBA/Agility Webinar What are the biggest and most common mistakes business owners make when dealing with a disaster? Whether it’s property damage caused by a flood, or the loss of sensitive data thanks to a hacked email account, how you respond within the first few hours of the crisis can make or break your small business. Get tips on how to avoid the costly mistakes that could put the safety of your clients and your organization at risk at a free webinar hosted by Agility Recovery and the U.S. Small Business Administration on Tuesday, December 10. True stories about business owners’ pre-disaster missteps, plans not followed and errors made—as well as what they learned during the recovery phase, will be discussed. SBA has partnered with Agility to offer business continuity strategies through its “PrepareMyBusiness” website. Visit www.preparemybusiness.org to access previous webinars and for additional preparedness tips. The SBA ...

WASHINGTON – Each year small businesses nationwide are forced to close their doors in the aftermath of severe storms, flooding, tornadoes, wildfires and hurricanes. Business interruptions, even if it lasts just a few hours, are costly in terms of lost productivity and profits. You can get help with your own business preparedness planning through a series of free webinars in September hosted by the U.S. Small Business Administration and Agility Recovery. The September series is presented in collaboration with FEMA’s Ready Campaign, as part of National Preparedness Month. The SBA wants to help business owners take charge of the well-being of their own companies, the safety of their employees, and the sustenance of their local economies by being prepared to rebound quickly from any kind of disaster. Below is a list of the topics, with registration links. The hour...

If you share responsibility for the care of historical records, or you care about records held by particular organizations, you will want to learn more about emergency preparedness. The following resources from around the state and nation offer information for historical records keepers on disaster planning and recovery. • The Disaster Assistance page of the New York State Archives provides information on emergency preparedness and recovering from a disaster and describes the services it can provide to State Agencies, to Local Governments, and to Historical Records Repositories. The New York State Archives has also been playing a leadership role in a national effort, coordinated by the Council of State Archivists (CoSA), to help all state archives and records management programs prepare for natural disasters and other records-related emergencies. •The Pocket Response Plan (PReP)™ is a concise document for recording essential information needed by staff in case of a disaster. It w...

None of us like to think about a disaster hitting our business. But the reality is that it could happen. There’s nowhere in the world where we can get away from weather disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, floods and lightning storms, to name a few. Even if you do live in paradise (where is that?), there’s always the chance that your technology could decide to stop working. Ever had a panicky moment with a green screen of death on your computer? I have. It wasn’t a pretty. And if your business is home based, you could lose both your home and your business in one swoop — in a single disaster. Oh, the horror! So that means you need to be ready . Visit the Mobile Apps Gallery to find government apps and mobile websites on a variety of topics. Here are just a few of the many apps you'll find: • Tornado - If a tornado warning is issued for your location, an alarm will sound, even when the app is closed. (available for iPhone and Android) • CDC Mobile App - Ge...

Disability.gov’s Emergency Preparedness section has quite a few tools and resources that can help people with disabilities and others prepare for, and recover from, emergency situations and disasters. You'll also find information about the importance of including people with disabilities in emergency preparedness efforts - including planning for, responding to and recovering from a disaster or emergency.

Small Businesses Should Take Steps to Be Prepared Now - Tips It’s often difficult for small business owners – some of the busiest people in America – to look beyond the most pressing, immediate business concerns. But an “ounce of prevention” today could mean the difference in whether a business is able to survive a disaster and quickly return to regular operations. Read MORE .

WASHINGTON – Find out what business owners learned after nearly losing their companies to small scale disasters like a sprinkler system malfunction or catastrophic events like widespread flooding during a free webinar on July 19 hosted by Agility Recovery Solutions and the U.S. Small Business Administration. Agility Recovery CEO Bob Boyd will share real stories of entrepreneurs whose business continuity strategies emerged while recovering from major disasters. He’ll also outline some practical applications of disaster preparedness tips, focusing on the concept of not only putting a plan together, but testing it periodically. SBA has partnered with Agility to offer business continuity strategies for entrepreneurs via their “PrepareMyBusiness” website. Visit www.preparemybusiness.org to access previous webinars and for more preparedness tips. Since 1953, the SBA has provided more than $48 billion in disaster recovery funds to 1.9 million homeowners, renters and businesses of all s...

WASHINGTON – With the June 1 start of another Atlantic hurricane season, the U.S. Small Business Administration and Agility Recovery Solutions are launching a new Web site to help small businesses develop an emergency preparedness plan before disaster hits, and reminding homeowners and renters to plan ahead as well. "Regardless of where you live, it’s a good idea to be ready for any kind of crisis," said SBA Administrator Karen Mills. "Every threat, from wind storms, floods, wildfires and earthquakes, to power outages and computer system failures, reminds us to be proactive when it comes to building strategies to survive a disaster and recover quickly. Recent disaster events demonstrate the need for preparedness to reduce the risk to life and property." Weather experts are predicting this year’s storm season may be the most intense since 2005, when Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma devastated the Gulf Coast states. In an effort to encourage businesses to plan ahead...

Last week, I received an e-mail from the CPM Industry Insider that had a link to the article Survey: American Small Businesses Not Prepared For Power Outages . Probably not coincidentally, on the very same day, SBA sent out a press release about September being National Preparedness Month, from which I will quote extensively: Homeowners, Renters and Businesses Are Encouraged to Plan Before Disaster Strikes WASHINGTON – Recent floods in the Midwest and hurricanes/tropical storms in Texas and Florida have cost homeowners, renters and businesses millions of dollars in damages. These events serve as reminders to the public to have a disaster preparedness plan in place. National Preparedness Month, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is designed to enhance the public’s awareness of the necessity of having an emergency plan in place to respond to a natural or man-made disaster. The U.S. Small Business Administration is one of the many government and private sector co...

Survey: 40 Percent Of Small Businesses Have No Disaster Preparedness Plan "A new national survey reveals that a startling number of small businesses remain unprepared to face a potential disaster, be that a hurricane, tornado, wildfire or computer virus, and the majority of these businesses have no plans to change. Commissioned by Office Depot, the survey of small businesses shows 40 percent admit they are not ready for a disaster and one-third indicate having no current plans to get prepared."