Is Your Professional Land Surveying Company Prepared for Disaster?

For the past four days I, along with many others along the eastern seaboard, have been dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, and it’s been an eye-opening experience to say the least.

First, let me say, that while I’ve been without power for over four days now (and may be out for up to a week), I’ve not experienced any property loss nor any personal injury.

There are so many other people suffering greatly, mostly due to flooding from Hurricane Irene, that my troubles pale by comparison.

Is Your Professional Land Surveying Company Prepared for Disaster?

So while I would describe the events of this week merely as an inconvenience (luckily), there have been lessons learned about business emergency preparedness. I was not as prepared as I could have been for a natural disaster.

Being a professional land surveyor who owns a land surveying company means you must have a wide range of skill sets other than technical skills. Is your professional land surveying company prepared for disaster?

So much of what we do relies on electricity to make it happen, like:

• Phones (cell and, sometimes, land lines)
• Computers
• Land Surveying Equipment
• Lights

And, if you live or operate your land surveying business in more rural areas, you might need electricity to have running water.

Being able to work at the office can be difficult enough, but land surveying field work can also be difficult, if not impossible, if there is, let’s say:

• Flooding
• Electrical Power Lines Down
• Roads Closed

This week, I’ve dealt with all of the above! But, I was able to keep going, after a little downtime to get everything in order. Business continuity, after natural disasters, is best not left to figuring out AFTER THE NATURAL DISASTER!

With the lessons learned, I am immediately preparing a well thought out, and written down, emergency preparedness plan for my land surveying business. While much of what will be in this emergency preparedness plan is based in common sense – and was executed during and after Hurricane Irene – there are other areas where having a plan in place beforehand to execute would have been even more helpful.

Did you have an emergency preparedness plan for your land surveying business, and if not, what would you put into it?