DAMAGE MANAGEMENT
your losses and ensure the safety of your people. Having plans for your premises, where services are located, shut-offs, whether there is or isn’t asbestos in the structure. You’ll need to know where external drains and man holes are – you may remember the tragic footage of a man whose limb was trapped in a drain and drowned in rising flood water. This is all vital information for you and subsequent contractors working in the property.
“The Environment
Agency state that by preparing in advance for flooding, most
businesses can save up to 90% of the cost of lost stock and
moveable equipment.”
So what does a flood plan look like? In short it is a risk assessment based upon the impact that the hazard (flood water) could have on your business. As with any risk assessment, once the hazard is identified it becomes practical to consider what risk control measures you can deploy.
What can you do to eliminate the risk? A tall order as the immediate geography may not be within your control. For some, groundworks and physical barriers may be a viable option. How will you reduce the risk of loss? Some simple changes to the workplace may be affordable; ensure roofs, downpipes, gullies and drains are suitably maintained; water will always find the path of least resistance.
How will you protect your most valuable assets? The location of
www.tomorrowscleaning.com
machinery, finished goods and raw materials are critical. Most businesses are IT dependent so safeguarding your systems and commercial data on two independently located servers is a logical step – we have seen businesses where back-up data and main systems are stored side by side!
So you are now starting to think about business continuity, this means minimum disruption; keeping your customers happy, or simply keeping your customers and maintaining your cash flow.
It is possible to be better informed in advance of severe weather and escalated flood alerts. The Environment Agency offers a great service called ‘Floodline Warnings Direct’, or you can use alert services from the Met Office.
This will give you time to mitigate
Your plan should identify where your services are for water, gas, IT and electricity and instructions on how to disable these if required. Your plan also needs to include the necessary steps to ensure that any hazardous materials are controlled during a flood event; waterborne contaminants are unwelcome enough without adding to the toxic mix.
Critically you will gather all the important contact information together; your insurers, including policy details, your local disaster restoration company, your electrical, gas and building contractors and emergency staff contact numbers.
Having covered all this ground, you may well decide to take the BCP you have created to your insurer or broker to discuss how your preparedness would help reduce your premiums – or to ask what else you could do to reduce them further.
We hope you’ll never need your plan or to use the services of ServiceMaster Clean but we are here for advice, support, and we will work to mitigate your losses if you do.
www.servicemasterclean.co.uk Tomorrow’s Cleaning | 37
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