disasters Continuity Compliance

Brookings Report Reveals Deeper Understanding of Current Disaster Response Trends

March 29, 2012 By Continuity_Compliance Leave a Comment

What would be your reaction if you were told that 2011 was a below-average year regarding both the number of disasters that occurred in that year as well as the number of people affected by those disasters? If you were somewhat skeptical of that claim, then you should read the full report just released by the Brookings Institution entitled “The Year that Shook the Rich: A Review of Natural Disasters in 2011”. In that report you will find many statements that might or might not challenge: (1) the disaster preparedness activities that your family has decided to implement, (2) the … [Read more...]

Business Continuity Awareness Week 2012 and an Opportunity to Play BC24 Free

March 16, 2012 By Continuity_Compliance Leave a Comment

With Business Continuity Awareness Week 2012 approaching, (19-23 March), the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) has recently announced a special offering regarding BC24 the internet Business Continuity Management (BCM) game. The BC24 game helps businesses understand the value of effective BCM and provides those businesses with a reason to change the way they deal with and plan for disasters and other potentially disruptive incidents or events. In essence, BC24 is a single scenario game involving a flood and a supply chain failure and all its consequences right from operational impacts to … [Read more...]

Business Continuity and Related Song Titles for Your Holiday Party

December 22, 2011 By Continuity_Compliance Leave a Comment

As part of our staff’s efforts to stay in touch with our readership, a constant watchful eye is kept on continuity and compliance related content published on the internet – e.g. business continuity, disaster preparedness, emergency management and other related websites of consultants and/or LinkedIn groups, associations, educational training and awareness publications, etc. During that process, our staff came across an interesting series of postings apropos to the Christmas and Holiday season – i.e. an exercise to find song titles related to the topics of disasters, … [Read more...]

National Preparedness System Description Announced by FEMA

December 6, 2011 By Continuity_Compliance Leave a Comment

Craig Fugate, Administrator, FEMA recently announced the next step to be taken regarding the Presidential Policy Directive on National Preparedness. That next step in FEMA’s ongoing efforts to improve levels of preparedness against a wide range of threats and hazards, such as acts of terrorism, cyber-attacks, pandemics and catastrophic natural disasters, was to release a description of the National Preparedness System. FEMA recognizes that the nation will be most prepared for threats and hazards when we work together, and to that point the National Preparedness System has now outlined … [Read more...]

Hurricane Irene Report, Crisis Mapping and Ushahidi

October 7, 2011 By Continuity_Compliance Leave a Comment

Recently, an open source project issued its first reports regarding a preliminary non-scientific analysis of the effects on the use of social media, crowdsourcing and crisis mapping played in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. This report should be interesting reading for all of our readers who study this topic, and how it might be updated and improved as a learning resource for the first responder, emergency response, crisis management and disaster preparedness team within their own organizations and communities. As we all now know, Hurricane Irene affected people from Puerto Rico to … [Read more...]

Google Supports NPM 2011 with New Preparedness Website Offering

August 31, 2011 By Continuity_Compliance Leave a Comment

Today, as part of its preparation and support for NPM 2011, Nigel Snoad, Crisis Response Product Manager for Google, announced that Google is introducing a new Google Crisis Preparedness website with information and educational tools to help utilize technology in preparing for crises. Additionally, a new public preparedness website --- Get Tech Ready --- is now available for disaster preparedness teams to incorporate into their pool of available resources. This new site was developed as collaboration between FEMA, the American Red Cross, the Ad Council and the Google Crisis Response team. … [Read more...]

“A Time to Remember. A Time to Prepare” — FEMA Sets NPM Sept 2011 Theme

August 3, 2011 By Continuity_Compliance Leave a Comment

As a reminder to our readers, FEMA has declared next month, September, National Preparedness Month (NPM). NPM is sponsored by the Ready Campaign in partnership with Citizen Corps and the Advertising Council with the specific purpose each September to encourage Americans to make sure that they are prepared for disasters or emergencies in their homes, their businesses, and their local communities. This September 2011 is the eighth annual NPM and this year’s slogan – “A Time to Remember. A Time to Prepare” – is in recognition of the 10th anniversary of the attacks of September … [Read more...]

Preparedness, Emergency Management and Disaster Recovery On-Air Info Available

June 13, 2011 By Continuity_Compliance Leave a Comment

Looking for a new resource to keep up on preparedness and disaster recovery issues and developments? You might want to try listening to “The Disaster Recovery Hour with Chris Plunkett”, broadcast on Tuesdays at 1:00 P.M. (EST) on AM 1160 WVNJ – the Voice in the New York Metro area or click here to go to website location for online audio streaming capabilities. On his program Chris Plunkett discusses and provides information on preparedness and protocols surrounding disasters large and small that touch all of our lives --- and how they affect homeowners, businesses and … [Read more...]

Business Continuity Plans and Likely Worst Case Scenarios

May 28, 2011 By Continuity_Compliance Leave a Comment

You would hope that many existing business continuity plans are being reviewed given the true scale and impact of the most recent disasters in Japan. The facts appear to be that these recent disasters in Japan may well change the definition of “likely worst case scenarios” for some business continuity plans. Trying to get a better handle on how this event could or should relate to your own organization is surely a challenge facing many business continuity and risk management planning teams today. And to help that process along, it would be good to focus your BC/DR and PS-Prep … [Read more...]

Business Continuity Planning Attracting More Attention from U.K. Insurers

June 30, 2010 By Continuity_Compliance Leave a Comment

As reported in a recent article posted on the Continuity Forum website, insurers in the U.K. are sharpening their focus on business continuity planning being at the heart of an organization’s planning strategies and action plans for a response to the many risks facing business in general. Our staff believes similar concerns are shared in the U.S. over this same issue. Experience in New York following 9/11 and generally in areas ravaged by the recent floods indicate that Small and Midsized Enterprises (SME’s) are the most vulnerable to the effects of business disruption, suffering far … [Read more...]