We don’t mean to scare you, but Hurricane Season is already in full swing and we’re headed into the most active part of the season, which extends until Nov. 30.
Fortunately, we have some tips to help you prepare you – and your small business – for what’s ahead.
According to the pre-season forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season is expected to be above-normal, with a range of 13 to 19 named storms. Of those, six to 10 could become hurricanes, including three to five major hurricanes. Florida SBDC at FIU, the small business development center within the university’s College of Business, as well as SBDCs statewide that are part of the Florida SBDC Network, are encouraging businesses to develop and review their disaster preparedness plan and make necessary preparations for the season as soon as possible.
“While every storm season brings a level of uncertainty, preparation is one thing small businesses can control,” said Greg Britton, state director of the Florida SBDC Network. “Regardless of the forecast, taking proactive measures today can significantly influence how well a business weathers a storm.”
- Not only is it important to protect staff, their building, data, and inventory, it is also critical to prepare a plan to continue operations following the disaster.
- A good plan may include provisions to relocate to a pre-identified site, retrieve data, including employee, customer and vendor records; and a way to operate efficiently with a smaller staff of key individuals.
- Businesses should back up data and ensure they have access to important files, such as tax records, legal, and financial documents.
Business interuptions aren’t only storms
To be sure, a large-scale disaster like a hurricane is just one of life’s unplanned business interruptions that could set back or even kill your business, says Brian Van Hook, regional director of Florida SBDC at FIU, the small business development center within the university’s College of Business, and a specialist in disaster planning.
And business continuity planning is certainly not limited to hurricane season. Am business may be more likely to be impacted by road construction, power outages, flooding, or other business interruptions, Van Hook said in a SBDC webinar on the topic. A major business interruption can jeopardize the future of the entire business if the right planning is not done. Case in point: Pandemics, such as we experienced with Covid, of course also create business interruptions, as do cyber attacks.
Florida SBDC at FIU helps business owners to develop a comprehensive business continuity plan. Van Hook said a good start is conducting a risk assessment, developing some table top exercises with your team, and coming up with company-specific checklists to follow pre-and-post-disaster.
Getting started
To get started, ask yourself these questions:
- Have you done a risk assessment on what risks are more likely to threaten your business?
- Have you done table top exercises to test your response to those specific risks?
- When is the last time you did a visual inspection of the business? Have you taken phots recently?
- Are there basic steps you can take today to better prepare your business against future disasters?
- Do you have a business box for protecting important papers and boxes?
Disaster planning is as much about personal planning as it is about business preparations, because how can anyone get back to business if they are worried about your home, children, relatives or pets? Discuss disaster plans with your team. Help them with personal disaster plans. Set deadlines when key items need to be completed by.
Here are a few key things you can do right now to prepare for hurricane and the season ahead season ahead:
- Update employee contact information. Make sure that includes emergency contacts and alternate means of communication, such as What’s App for example.
- Identify any special skills, certifications, etc. that your team members possess that might come in handy in an emergency (i.e. first aid, CPR, or military training).
- Before an approaching hurricane, ask your team about their plans relative to evacuating vs. shelter-in-place. Also have them identify any childcare needs or if they have other concerns such as pets or elderly relatives.
Have a plan for suppliers and customers
Disaster planning is also about having a plan for suppliers and contractors. Maintain current vendor information, contracts and account numbers. Ask your vendors about their continuity plan and if they don’t have one, how will that affect you? Maintain a list of alternate suppliers just in case, perhaps considering geographic diversity. Place periodic orders with your alternate suppliers to maintain active status, he says.
Lastly, your plan needs to include ways you will keep communications open with your customers. Keep a copy of customer records off site or in the cloud and have an alternative worksite from which to communicate with customers during recovery.
If you have government contracts, for instance, the governmental entity will want to know that you have a solid plan in place.
“The good thing is SBDC is here. We can provide you with training materials, help you with your business continuity plan, with checklists, with emergency preparedness plans. We have a lot of resources we can provide to you to help you get started,” Van Hook said.
These were just a few of the tips Van Hook shared in an SBDC webinar on Disaster Resiliency. Building a resilient business goes far beyond preparing for an upcoming storm. It also involves risk management, contingency planning, disaster recovery and succession planning for various scenarios that couple impact your business, including storms.
In case disaster strikes …
In the event of a disaster, Florida SBDC disaster specialists across the state help affected businesses prepare disaster loan applications. The network will also deploy its mobile assistance centers into communities for affected businesses to receive on-site assistance with disaster loans and other post-disaster challenges.
Should a hurricane hit South Florida, multiple channels provide emergency response and recovery information. These include Florida SBDC at FIU , Miami-Dade County, Monroe County, individual municipalities, and the State of Florida.
A small business will be able to check the SBA website to see if SBA Disaster Loan assistance is available. That website is here.
The business also can check the State of Florida’s Emergency Bridge Loan website to see if those bridge loans are available. That website is here.
For a hurricane preparedness checklist and other resources from the U.S. Small Business Administration, click here.
Find out much more in this informative SBDC at FIU webinar: