9 essential steps to prepare for a natural disaster

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has revealed that Victoria is likely to experience one of the hottest summers on record, with temperatures expected to soar above average across the state. With southwest Victoria declared in drought, following a dry autumn and winter, the stage is set for a challenging season ahead.

Victorian businesses have faced their fair share of challenges in recent years, and the thought of a natural disaster could feel overwhelming. But with the right preparation, your business can be ready to adapt swiftly to change and reduce disruptions as much as possible.

Whether you’re a small business in Melbourne, Moonee Ponds or Mildura, you never know when a storm, flood, fire, drought or wind could affect your business.

To help you plan and prepare in case of a natural disaster, here are 9 essential steps you need to take.

1. Find the right insurance for your business

Having an insurance policy that's appropriate for your business needs can be vital for the survival of your business. Different policies can protect you against a range of unforeseen events, such as an office fire, theft of equipment or a natural disaster.

A small business with insurance will find that it:

• greatly assists your business in covering your losses during the recovery period.
• helps get your business back on its feet quicker.

If you have insurance, carefully review all inclusions and exclusions. For more information on insurance, visit the Find the right insurance for your business page.

2. Preparing your business

Being ready is your best defence! Keep your business safe all year round by being prepared for natural disasters. Steps you can take now include:

• Ensure you maintain your business and reduce debris in fire-prone areas.
• Reduce water consumption, especially in drought-affected regions.
• Regularly review and maintain your business premises, if relevant, to reduce damage from floods and storms.
• Continually maintain a high level of awareness.

Emergency Management Victoria has a range of guides available that will help you prepare for natural disasters. For more information visit Prepare and get ready page on the Vic Emergency website.

To make sure you’re on top of the latest information, follow Victorian Government social media accounts and download the VicEmergency app available on Apple and Android devices.

3. Build your preparedness knowledge and skills

It’s hard to know how you’ll respond in a time of crisis. Planning how you and your staff will respond in an emergency can help keep everyone safe and reduce the impact of a disaster on your staff and on your business.

The Business Victoria website offers a range of tools to help you prepare for unplanned disruptions, including strategies and tips for crisis planning, responding to a natural disaster and much more. Get started by completing the free online course Strengthening business practices.

For small businesses in bushfire-prone regions, watch the Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) webinar series:

• Preparing your business for bushfire season Part 1
• Preparing your business for bushfire season Part 2.

4. Complete an emergency management plan

A good emergency management plan prepares everyone in the business for an unexpected crisis. By spending time on it now, you’ll be ensuring that when an emergency does happen, you know what to do to keep people safe. It’s also critical to share this plan with your employees so everyone will be ready to act quickly and effectively.

An emergency management plan will ensure you have:

• identified your key emergency contacts.
• clearly outlined your emergency and evacuation procedures.

Download the Emergency management plan template, to help protect your business in case of an emergency.

5. Make your business more resilient to disasters

Did you know that most disaster preparation is the same regardless of what the situation is? It might seem hard but preparing your business for disaster is vitally important.

A disaster recovery plan will help you respond quickly when a disaster occurs so you can minimise the risk of disruption to your business. Make sure to share your plan with your staff so they know what to do.

The Disaster Resilience for Business toolkit and companion checklist allow you to assess and understand the impacts of a natural disaster on your business.

The free toolkit will help you to:

• identify what will make your business resilient to disasters
• understand how you can prepare before a disaster
• keep your business trading safely during a disaster
• get your business back up and running after a disaster.

Complete the toolkit to help your business be more resilient to future disasters.

6. Data backup and recovery

Does your small business have files, photos or records that you can’t afford to lose? Essential data often includes:

• customer and supplier data
• registration, insurance and financial records.

If you have these on paper or saved on a single device, you could lose them all. Backing up your data regularly, both onsite and offsite, is the best way to protect your important information in the event of a disaster.

For more information on a data backup plan, read our article Do you have a data backup plan?

7. Pre-pack an emergency kit

If you need to evacuate your business, it can be difficult to remember everything you need. Pre-packing an emergency kit, along with a checklist of what you need to take, can help reduce anxiety and make sure you’ve got everything you need.

An emergency kit will help you survive and support you in the initial stages of recovery.

It should include:

• a first aid kit
• bottled water, enough to cover you and your staff
• a copy of your emergency management plan
• phone chargers and/or battery packs
• long shelf-life foods
• torches
• spare work clothes
• protective gloves, goggles and masks
• a USB stick and/or printed copies of your important business documents.

For more information on emergency kits, visit the Emergency Prepare website.

8. Communication

After a natural disaster has passed and the immediate crisis is over communication will be your biggest strength, whether that’s with your employees, suppliers or your customers.

Take the time now to create a pre-planned message that you can send immediately, to inform your key business contacts and to avoid unnecessary costs to suppliers.

Also make sure you have bookmarked the Australian Red Cross Register.Find. Reunite. website., so you can keep family and friends informed that you are safe, in the event that you are evacuated.

9. Build wellbeing and mental health support into your planning

When taking steps to plan for a natural disaster, you should always consider the wellbeing and mental health of yourself and your staff.

Knowing how to incorporate this into your planning may seem daunting, but Business Victoria’s Workplace wellbeing hub has a wide range of free tools, resources and information on mental health and wellbeing to support you and your staff.

For more information, visit the following pages:

• Get immediate mental health assistance
• Manage stress at work
• Wellbeing and mental health support for small businesses
• Create a mentally healthy workplace.

For more information on support for small business owners, visit the Partners in Wellbeing Helpline. If you are not eligible for this program, there are a range of wellbeing, financial counselling, business advisory and other services available through the Small Business Support Services.

Start planning and preparing today

You never know when a natural disaster may strike your business. Take the time now to review your processes and plan ahead to bounce back to business quicker.

Plan, prepare and recover quickly by following the 9 essential steps – and if you haven’t already, complete the Emergency management plan template and the Disaster resilience for business toolkit.