Lessons Learned from Hurricane Florence

Businesses can prepare for emergencies, but are all those plans in place when the disaster actually strikes? Net Friends learned valuable lessons from Hurricane Florence before, during and after she made landfall on September 14th. We want to share those lessons with you and hope you find them helpful.

This is a three-part blog series with lessons Net Friends learned from Hurricane Florence:

1. Lessons Learned from Hurricane Florence (current post)
2. Hurricane Florence, What We Didn’t See Coming
3. Hurricane Florence, Planning for the Future

Below are the important dates regarding Hurricane Florence and Net Friends’ corresponding emergency response:

• Saturday, September 8th – Media Coverage about Hurricane Florence starts picking up
• Monday, September 10th – Net Friends begins revving up our Emergency Response Procedures
• Friday, September 14th – Hurricane Florence arrives in the Raleigh-Durham area
• Monday, September 17th – Many Durham roads are flooded, and tornado warnings are issued during peak commute times

From the desk of John Snyder, Net Friends President – –

On Monday, September 10th, with Hurricane Florence projected to hit North Carolina as a Category 4 Hurricane, it became apparent to us that we needed to begin Emergency Response planning and that we were already well behind where we wanted to be when the storm made landfall. We pinpointed certain items as some of the most important to have in place in order to sustain business during a major emergency. However, despite our best efforts to have them rolled out by the time the storm hit, time and other factors caught us flat-footed when the storm did finally arrive. We learned many valuable lessons from Hurricane Florence that we hope to share with our readers.

Before there is another crisis, we must have the following firmly in place:

1. A documented and rehearsed Crisis Response Plan
2. Pre-written communications
3. Rehearsed communication distribution methods for staff and customers
4. Clearly defined roles for specific Response Duties with duties rehearsed and easily activated
5. Vetted and pre-approved limited set of news sources to avoid conflicting information
6. Contingency plans for vital procedures that are at risk of disruption or stress during a major weather event, such as handling of after-hours alerts and support requests
7. In the aftermath of the storm, we put our heads together here at the office and really get all details and aspects of our emergency response plan identified in writing.

These details are so incredibly important to have in place and in written form, not only to think through potential situations you can imagine, but also to prepare yourself and your staff for potential situations you may never even see coming.

And speaking of those unforeseen situations, read our followup blog post, Hurricane Florence, What We Didn’t See Coming, where I’ll share just those types of scenarios with you and steps and precautions you can take to protect yourself and your staff in the event such a situation arises.

What precautions and planning did you do to prepare for Hurricane Florence? Did you learn any lessons from this storm? What emergency response procedures do you plan on having in place in the event of another emergency like this one? We’d love for you to share.