This week for National Preparedness Month I would like to focus on one aspect of family preparedness that I’ve had to deal with personally – home evacuation.  In the previous two years my home area in Colorado had to deal with back-to-back record setting wildfires, the Waldo Canyon Fire and the Black Forest Fire.  Before you think “I don’t have to worry about evacuations because I don’t live in a forest,” let me say I don’t live in the forest either.  I’m basically in a developed area mixed with a good amount of trees.  The majority of the homes lost in these fires were in traditional subdivisions.  Even if your wildfire risk is low, floods, chemical spills, aircraft accidents, hurricanes, and many other hazardous situations may require you to evacuate your home.  From my personal & professional experience, I would like to share a few tips to help you better prepare your family.

Don’t Assume Anything!  I have to admit that although I teach classes regarding preparedness for work and home and have completed quite a few actions to prepare my family, I hadn’t gotten around to some things I knew I should have before the first fire.  We had emergency supplies, a family checklist, and a plan of where to go all figured out.  I even had our (very tiny) camper all prepped and ready.  Collecting and scanning our critical paperwork - well, that’s my personal shortfall.  I assumed it was all in the fire-proof box and file cabinet.  Over time those documents are needed for other purposes and many don’t find their way back.  When we received the pre-evacuation warning during the Waldo Canyon fire, it became obvious that assuming those important documents were exactly where they should be was not correct.

A little over a year ago in my first blog post I discussed the business risks from protests and civil unrest from a continuity planning perspective, inspired by my cousin who owns a business very near to the events of that time.   (Post is here if you’d like to catch up:  http://accinctus.com/index.php/news/item/3-civil-unrest-is-a-business-threat)  A year later we see similar issues as the non-stop news stories so I’d like to revisit that idea as a reminder.

In that article, I recommended businesses take three steps:

1. Assess the threats and understand the risks to your business, employees, and customers and look for alternatives.
2. Have a solid communication process in place so you can easily communicate with your employees during an incident.
3. Document your response and recovery processes in your business continuity plan (BCP).

I still firmly believe that any business of any size (even micro-businesses with less than 10 employees) will benefit from applying these steps to their business scaled to their needs.  A risk assessment, communication plan, and business continuity plan will be very different in both size and level of detail comparing a small business and a global enterprise company, but the basic steps and the purpose are very similar. 

By now almost everyone has heard about the water crisis in Toledo the last few days, either as a legitimate news story or an internet joke.  I grew up on Rudy’s and Packo’s, the Mudhens, Max Klinger, the Jeep plant and “Glass City” so I know the “take the lake for granted” mentality of the area.  Even as the smallest Great Lake, Lake Erie is immense and you just can’t imagine more than 500,000 people told “don’t drink the water” over three days in the first days of August due to a little microscopic plant that just happens to have a nasty by product that is rather hazardous to people.  I’ll leave the science class aside, although I am definitely interested to see what happens from here.  Instead I would like to address the incident from my professional perspective.  

Today marks the one year anniversary of Accinctus.  A good friend of mine who is also a successful business owner told me when I started – the first year is a game of 52.  52 weeks in the year and 52 cards in a deck – week by week keep going to make it through the deck (looking forward to your book on the topic Bill).  Many days I feel it’s a game of 52 pickup with all the cards tossed in the air and I have to pluck just the right one out of the air at the right moment before they all fall. Might seem like magic but I’ve found there is no magic to any of this – just hard work with a good dose of stubbornness (which I have in spades).   

I’ve been thinking about what I’ve learned this year and would like to share my thoughts on what I think are the top 7 lessons.  Those who have far more experience running a business will perhaps enjoy a reminiscent chuckle and those like me trying to build a new business or thinking about starting a business will hopefully find some value in these to perhaps feel they’re not crazy.  

Lesson 1:  Starting a company is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. 
I am constantly challenged to learn about so many new things that a business owner needs to know.  Every time I think I’m starting to understand one thing, 50 more jump out at me and I do not know when that will slow down.  Some days it feels a lot like basic training with a string of rough minutes, hours, and days strung together.  Tenacity of purpose and thick skin are required to wear the title of “business owner!”