Alliance to involve bizs in disaster planning

OPEN WATER: The flood of March 2010 resulted in Warwick Mall being shut down for 144 days as the stores recovered and rebuilt. The mall’s general manager thinks most Rhode Island businesses are now prepared for potential disasters, in part due to recent experience with storms. / PBN FILE PHOTO/RYAN T. CONATY
OPEN WATER: The flood of March 2010 resulted in Warwick Mall being shut down for 144 days as the stores recovered and rebuilt. The mall’s general manager thinks most Rhode Island businesses are now prepared for potential disasters, in part due to recent experience with storms. / PBN FILE PHOTO/RYAN T. CONATY

Businesses will play an increasingly important role in disaster preparedness and recovery with the anticipated official launch this month of a public-private partnership called the Rhode Island Business Alliance, said Pete Gaynor, director of emergency management for Providence.
“We’ve gone through several disasters in the past few years, with Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Sandy and the blizzard of February 2013, and we always knew instinctively that businesses are an important part of preparedness and recovery, but we’ve realized that businesses are a key ingredient,” said Gaynor. “Now we want to make sure businesses are part of the process.”
The Rhode Island Business Alliance is a collaboration among the Providence Emergency Management Agency, the R.I. Emergency Management Agency and the Northeast Disaster Recovery Information X-Change. Those organizations have been working since February on the development of the program.
The mission of the alliance is to have private-sector organizations collaborate with government agencies and use their combined resources and knowledge “to strengthen resiliency of the local economy and community from the disruptions that occur during and after disasters,” according to the organization’s website, which is currently in a testing phase.
“One of the things we want to do is training to help businesses build response plans or emergency action plans when we have a blue-sky day,” said Gaynor.
“Having a disaster plan or a continuity of operations plan or an emergency action plan, in a business sense, is the ability to have a competitive edge,” he said. “If you can stay in business during a hazard or any kind of emergency event, it’s good for the city. We want businesses to stay open as long as possible.”
A major reason for the creation of the alliance is to build a solid foundation during quiet times that makes things smoother for everyone during an emergency. The alliance will have business members, although there is no cost for membership.
“Large and small businesses are what give a city vitality. We’re very sensitive about making decisions that impact businesses, about whether we are going to close the highway or recommend flexible work hours,” said Gaynor. “We want businesses to be part of the process so they can make the best decision for themselves.” The downing of power lines and the loss of electricity to a large portion of homes in Rhode Island during Hurricane Irene in 2011 initiated a collaboration between the Providence EMA and National Grid that’s become a standard practice and an example of public-private cooperation that improves disaster response across communities, he said.
“The city has always had a great relationship with National Grid, but with a storm, there are always issues about power,” said Gaynor.
“During Irene, for instance, I had contact from someone in a high-rise housing unit about power and it’s always about how fast the response time is,” said Gaynor. “So we collaborated with National Grid about how to improve that.
“As result, we have a National Grid staff person who has a seat at the Providence Emergency Operations Center when it’s activated,” said Gaynor.
The utility made that a policy.
“We have had a person attached to the Providence EOC since our post-Irene policy implementation to embed National Grid personnel in communities with major outages to provide direct, on-the-ground contact with the communities, in this case Providence,” said National Grid spokesman David Graves. “We also have people assigned to RIEMA 24/7, whenever that facility opens for storm work.”
The National Grid staff person has been in the city’s EOC a few times, so far, and that’s provided the impetus for additional collaboration, said Gaynor.
“We realized we really need to have a wider range and bring in more businesses to make the response and recovery better,” he said.
One of the priorities of the Rhode Island Business Alliance will be to bring in representatives of industries that are critical for keeping the resources and services of the business community available. That can range from ATMs to gas stations, bottled water and plywood.
Although the 2014 Atlantic Hurricane season, which began June 1 and runs through Nov. 30, is predicted to be near or below normal, according to the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, that includes a chance of eight to 13 named storms, three to six hurricanes and one or two major hurricanes. “Whatever the hurricane forecasters say, when you look back through the history of hurricanes, it only takes one hurricane or tropical storm to do a lot of damage,” said Gaynor. “We’re really concerned about possible flooding of downtown and a surge that could push water up into other neighborhoods, so we want to get businesses prepared.”
More and more Rhode Island businesses are taking the initiative, and making the investment, to be prepared for emergencies of any kind, said Lori Adamo, president of Cranston-based Code Red Business Continuity Services, an 11-year-old business.
“At first, most of the businesses I worked with on continuity and emergency-response plans were in Massachusetts, but awareness has heightened and overall, Rhode Island businesses are better prepared for a disaster than they were 10 years ago,” said Adamo.
“I’ve worked with banks, insurance companies, law firms and a variety of companies – probably about 100 businesses in Rhode Island – in the past few years,” she said.
“Some of the businesses that have continuity plans are reaching down to include their suppliers and vendors, so they’re still able to bring services to the community,” she said.
Such plans or an emergency-response plan cover a wide range of possible disasters, she said.
Emergency planning has increased with the help of federal dollars and local business organizations, said Adamo, who has done workshops on disaster preparedness for small business in collaboration with the Providence Emergency Management Agency, SCORE and the Center for Women & Enterprise.
Warwick Mall General Manager Domenic Schiavone thinks most Rhode Island businesses are prepared for potential disasters, in part due to recent experience with storms.
The flood of March 2010, which was Schiavone’s first day on the job, resulted in the mall being shut down for 144 days as the stores recovered and rebuilt.
“The mall has an emergency-response plan, but we don’t dictate to the businesses about having a plan and we’ve found out it’s not necessary,” he said. “The businesses are prepared. It’s now just part of the course of doing business.” •

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