Disaster-Ready Communities - Community Preparedness and BCM

When disaster strikes, affected communities face loss, challenges and demands that differ significantly from anything normally encountered. Disasters disrupt societal functions, damage or destroy essential infrastructure, and interrupt economic activity on a scale that means that recovery takes years. The strategies deployed to manage these consequences typically treat social, economic and infrastructure recovery independently. However, effective recovery requires acknowledging their interdependence.

For example, people who have prepared for disaster are more likely to be available to assist physical recovery and rebuilding efforts, and to support business and economic recovery (as employees and customers). Their ability to do so, however, is a function of business preparedness. Thus, if people and businesses both play their preparedness parts, their actions complement one another in ways that sustain employment and economic vitality. Social and business recovery, in turn, ensures the availability of the businesses and workforce necessary for services and infrastructure repair and reconstruction.

An appreciation of such interdependencies raises the need to consider how facilitating community disaster preparedness can be, indirectly, a goal of business continuity planning.