Why Use a Business Continuity Plan?

Broken Promises and Superstorm Sandy

Bureaucratic processes never cease to amaze me in the length of time they take to transpire.

My partner and I own a 20 year old business located in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York. It's a small event management company handling all types of occasions from Baptisms and Brises to Weddings and 50th Anniversaries - corporate or private parties - large or small, no difference. We are located right across the street from Gargiulo's Restaurant, a 106 year old Brooklyn staple. That restaurant/catering hall has been in my partner's family since 1965, family owned and operated.

On October 29, 2012, all of our day-to-day routines were swept out with the tide - literally! Hurricane Sandy moved in, bringing over five feet of water from Coney Island Creek first then the tidal surge from the ocean. All of Coney Island was covered with water and sand from the shore to the Belt Parkway. Not one property was spared.

Cousins had flooded basements; one cousin lost his beachfront home to the ravages of the Atlantic; at least a dozen personal vehicles all sunk; over 10 inches of water on the entire first floor of the restaurant which is elevated over four feet from street level; a 10 foot tall basement, over 20,000 square feet, filled to the ceiling with sea water.

And then there was our store.

All of our stock had just been delivered. We had some of the best opportunities and events of our careers during the week previous to the storm - a soup-to-nuts First birthday party with a Halloween theme, American Cancer Society called us to do giant arches in Central Park at the start and finish lines of their main New York City fund raising walk, complete balloon decorations on the set of Rachel Ray for her Halloween show. It all seems like a blur at this point - so far removed from our reality now. Counters cracked the front door, items that had been raised up all fell to the floor and were sunk in over five feet of water, all balloon inflating equipment under water, almost all of the stock of balloons we owned gone. Not even the drawer of scissors survived.

We were done.

The day after the storm, my partner and I decided to close. Everything that was ruined by the salt water went into the garbage. Someone came by and told us that FEMA was in the area and we should go speak to them, which we did. It seemed surreal to me - we had vacationed in New Orleans a year before and to be sitting outside the same trailers we had heard about from the residents of the Big Easy was almost too much to bear. My partner was upbeat - positive even. All I wanted to do was cry.

With a restless night's sleep in a home with no power, we came in the next day and decided to reopen because the representatives at the FEMA trailer sounded so upbeat. We would apply to the SBA and to the NYCEDC - we would be helped. Our staff stepped up and cleaned out the entire store - the young kids who had walked into our store looking for a job years before stood in front of us and told us that "We were in this together" and that they would help us rebuild. We knew we could work as long as we had a pair of scissors, a helium tank and some balloons. And that is what we did.

As we had back in 2001, after the September 11th attacks on our city, we got back to business. Back in 2001, our bank representatives showed up less than a month later to sign off on "Bridge Loans" available from the government to "help us recover". Then, Coney Island didn't seem to us like a terrorist's target but the money came in and we were able to strengthen our business with the SBA behind us. This time, the SBA was behind us - basically kicking us while we were down.

All paperwork filed, interviews and meetings kept. Over thirty phone calls and hundreds of pages later - I am the proud owner of a denial letter from the NYCEDC (too high a risk), a denial letter from the SBA (we didn't make a large enough profit in 2011) and a final denial from a private program as we owned property - no way to get the funds we needed to rebuild.

We were told we could reapply and appeal decisions. Any money we have made has gone to pay for the new electrical panel, new walls and insulation, new doors and moldings. Jim Parker and over 30 members of BalloonPlanet.com raised money to help us restock our balloon inventory. We received a $500 grant from the Alliance for Coney Island and a "Pay It Forward" grant of $1000 from LiteWing Naturals in New Jersey. These grants have helped us immensely - our thanks will never be enough to repay their kindness and thoughtfulness.

But as for my faith in government sponsored programs that are designed to help those who need it most, I can tell you this: I was always told to do good and good would be returned. My partner and I have always tried to do the right thing - we've always tried to be fair, honest, supportive of our staff, eager to work for and help others. That is one thing that will never change.

My faith on the promises of our government programs? Swept away with Superstorm Sandy.

Lessons learned? Rely on yourself, treasure those that support you, work hard and pray for sunshine.

Jane Parmel
http://www.avividimagination.com

Business continuity planning - Wiki Article

Triumph or Disaster?

"IF you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you... If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster... Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken... and lose, and start again at your beginnings... ". Some fine words from one of the finest poems ever written - "If" by Rudyard Kipling. Without pain, struggle and failure, how could we truly appreciate the good times and acknowledge our success and achievement.

When I first started speaking as a professional, one thing that I felt quite happy about was the fact that I was able to deliver my talks and ideas with conviction and energy despite having never failed in business or life (so I thought). I don't believe I was smug in any way; I was just pleased to be on stage having not felt the pain of failure and everything that goes with it. I was young, enthusiastic with a hunger to succeed and a self-belief that I would. Knowing that I had always succeeded in my life and work up to that point, gave me an extra boost of confidence.

Then reality struck! Many of us have suffered professionally and personally since 2008, many businesses have gone to the wall, property empires have collapsed and relationships have changed forever. I can admit that some of my less happy circumstances have been caused by self-inflicted flaws and weaknesses in my business model or in the decisions I made when feeling content and 'bullet proof' prior to the global meltdown.

I don't tell you this story to depress you but to empathise with those who have suffered similarly, share with those who are just getting going and shine a light of hope that the good times will come again.

I recently worked in a tough secondary school, a school where the students were very disengaged and clearly didn't want to be there. On top of that there was a big fight between students during the lunch break, with ambulances and blue-flashing lights, which meant that during the afternoon session the students were hugely distracted and even less engaged. Keeping any sort of order or learning objectives in mind through the day was a real challenge for me.

Excluding the trouble makers and removing students from the classroom would have meant reducing the class by half. It really was a tough day at the office. Feedback from the students was understandably mixed. The negative feedback was blunt, rude and hard for me to read, especially since I knew I had given it my all. Yet by contrast, the positive feedback was really special showing that many students had gained a great deal from the day. Overall, I had to be philosophical about that particular day. I used all the tools in the box to deliver a memorable day for the students and other circumstances that occurred meant that perhaps it was memorable for different reasons...

Contrast that with the next time I worked in a school delivering a speaking skills programme, only a week later. There were students who didn't want to be there and others that were keen to learn, those that were challenging and difficult still got involved, we engaged on a different level and they all stood up and delivered their speeches at the end of the day like they had never delivered a speech before in their lives. It was a real privilege to be in the room and hear their words.

What was different? The moon, the stars, the school, the teachers or the environment? -All of the above probably, or maybe none of the above. In everything we do there are tough days, days when everything just seems to go wrong despite our best efforts and then there are days when it feels like you just don't have to try and everything works. Those days feel so good, but what makes them feel even better is the fact that you know and understand the pain of the 'crap' days. Everyone has good and bad stuff going on, enjoy the good times, forgive yourself when things go wrong and learn from the bad days. Remember that tomorrow is another day, it isn't yet written, so go for it!

Mike Pagan is a highly sought after professional motivational speaker, conference speaker, and business coach.

For Your Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning Needs: Data Centers "on Wheels"

For Your Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning Needs: Data Centers "on Wheels"

Disaster Strikes: No Time to Forget the Disabled

In a disaster situation, it is important to remember those who already have their own unique challenges when going about their daily lives. All too often the disabled are overlooked in favor of rushing help to a community overwhelmed with a loss of basic services because of flooding or other severe storm damage that might have necessities like power and sanitation crippled for days, weeks, or in extreme cases months and even years.

Flooding in particular presents a particular hazard that goes beyond property damage, affecting basic health by contaminating fresh water sources and forcing displaced survivors to pack into emergency shelters. In the United States, most places used for emergency shelters are not usually equipped to handle so many people all at once like churches, school gymnasiums, or other sporting venues. This puts that much more strain on already iffy sanitation services in a disaster struck area and makes the disabled that much more difficult to accommodate if they have special needs to take into account. Potentially life-threatening infections that contaminated water can spread include, but are not limited to, E. coli, giardia, salmonella, and hepatitis A.

The easiest solution to this problem is amazingly simple --portable toilets -- in other words, the humble porta potty.

Portable rental toilets, or porta potty as many call them, are self-contained chemical toilets. Just as importantly, however, the porta potty can be found in ADA compliant models. They need no existing plumbing in place to hook up to on site where they're needed most, so if local waste treatment facilities are damaged they won't add any stress to an already compromised system. Sewage disposal can be trucked from where temporary shelters are to a nearby community that isn't as badly affected. This, combined with bottled water distribution and portable hand wash stations that many portable toilet companies now have available, the potential for the spread of disease is radically reduced.

By including ADA compliant bathrooms to these temporary disaster situations, that extra protection is extended to not only the disabled, but to the elderly who can have more difficulty sitting and standing in confined spaces (such as a standard porta potty), or disaster victims who have been injured and can't get around as easily as usual. Making sure portable ADA compliant bathrooms are included to disaster areas along with disability accessible portable hand wash stations protects not only the disabled, but the elderly and the rest of a stressed population from the spread of serious diseases.

A-1 Little John is a family owned and operated business that serves the porta potty needs of the Texoma area. We specialize in all types of portable bathroom rentals including ADA compliant bathrooms, construction units, and hand wash stations.