By Kenneth Schroeder, CBCP
What season is it?
Hurricane season! Forecasters are again predicting an above average season. La Nina conditions, coupled with high Gulf of Mexico water temperatures all point to the sleeping giant awakening.
Tornado season! This has been a record year for tornados, with severe impact on some of our credit unions. Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Tennessee.
Flood season! Water, water everywhere. The Dakotas, Missouri, Memphis, the Mississippi Delta. Depending on where you are, the worst is either over or yet to come.
All of us have been particularly focused on the economic weather instead of the outside weather these past 18 months. Now it's time to take a couple minutes to re-focus on our industry business continuity planning which may be critical to our survival, if the weather affects us like it did in the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons.
Following Katrina and Wilma, I was privileged enough to deliver some relief supplies into affected areas to help our member credit unions restore their operations. I observed dedicated credit union staffs, many despite personal adversity, standing ready to help their members get cash. I saw some ingenious out-of-the-box thinking help restore services.
Hopefully, all of you have updated your plans from the experiences gained during the bad events of then and now, even if you weren’t directly affected by them. Hopefully, all of you reviewed your plans recently. Most hopefully of all, however, is that you have recently exercised your plans and stressed them during the calm of normal operations.
When the power goes out, it’s too late to go looking to buy a generator. When the streets are jammed with downed power lines, tree limbs or flood waters, it’s too late to modify your cash delivery schedule or quantities. When the phone lines are out or your phone system server is flooded and inoperable, it’s too late to go buy a satellite dish for your communications. When all your loan department staff are out sick with e-coli infection from the department lunch, it’s too late to think about cross-training some backup team members.
I’ve saved the most important for last: Make sure all your staff have family disaster plans! People are our most critical asset. Losing either staff or any of their family members to the storm and its aftermath is most painful of all, since those preparations are what should be done first. Families should have a “go kit,” a backpack with key papers, backup meds, some water, energy food, flashlight, radio and candles that can be grabbed in one hand while you grab the kids in the other and fly out the door to evacuate. All families should have an assembly point, with a phone number, where they will gather if they lose contact with each other in the chaos of a disaster. The kids should have a slip of paper in their pocket with that information, so if they get lost, the authorities can get you back together.
Spread the word! Help me make sure no credit union member, no credit union staff, and no credit union itself suffers from catastrophe amnesia and tries to get through this season, whichever it is, unprepared.
Kenneth Schroeder, CBCP, is VP/business continuity planning at $3.3 billion Southeast Corporate Federal Credit Union, Tallahassee, Fla.
Also read "On Compliance: From a Business Continuity Heretic" by Schroeder.
