Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Emergency Planning Resources

With the recent storm damage, residents and companies in Central Ohio have been faced with testing whatever emergency plans they had in place to keep their businesses running and to get operations up as fast as possible. To the extent that these plans were inadequate or need to be updated, there are a number of resources available to assist in that process.

www.thebci.org/
The Business Continuity Institute Web site contains information and resources for both the business continuity novice and expert, as well as allowing members the opportunity to communicate and network with each other.

http://nonprofitrisk.org/tools/cares/cares.shtml.
The Nonprofit Computer Assisted Risk Evaluation System (Nonprofit CARES) is a web-based tool designed specifically for nonprofits by the Nonprofit Risk Management Center in Washington, D.C.

http://www.contingencyplanning.com/
Contingency Planning & Management. At this site you will find on-line articles, tips, “how-to” manuals, and on-line training in business continuity planning. In addition, you can subscribe to a free on-line magazine, Contingency Planning & Management.

http://www.drj.com/
Disaster Recovery Journal has been publishing information on disaster recovery since 1987 and provides a number of helpful articles regarding disaster recovery and business continuity planning. Under its “tools” page, it also has sample and actual business continuity plans from dozens of institutions.

http://www.disaster-resource.com/
Disaster-Resource.com provides a number of articles, a chat room, business continuity planning supplies, and general support for those who are developing business continuity plans.

http://www.fema.org/
This is the federal government site for emergency and disaster planning/prevention for hurricane, fire, flood, and terrorist action for individuals, families, businesses and other organizations. It is pretty comprehensive in covering the types of emergencies which an organization could face.

http://www.globalcontinuity.com/
A business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR) portal service provided by Global Continuity Plc. This site has information and resources on a broad range of topics.

http://www.iprepare.com/survival-kits.html
IPrepare.com sells a number of disaster and emergency kits, both for the home and business. Kits offered for sale include first aid kits, automobile emergency kits, food preparation kits, and many more.

http://www.nonprofitrisk.org/
The Nonprofit Risk Management Center offers many free publications on business continuity, natural disasters and emergency situations; business interruption insurance, information technology, and strategic risk management. It is extremely user-friendly for novices to the subject.

www.nonprofitroundtable.org/Strategic-Priorities/Preparedness-Resources/menu-id-38.
The Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington has a variety of free resources on its website for preparing an emergency preparedness plan, including a plan template.

http://www.npccny.org/info/disaster_plan.htm
The Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York provides free information on its website, including comprehensive checklists and templates for developing a business continuity plan.

http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/emergencypreparedness/index.html.
The Occupational Safety & Health Administration provides an informative site for emergency responses and preparedness. This site provides good information regarding creating and maintaining a safe work environment.

www.ready.gov/business/index.html and http://www.ready.gov/business/other/library.html. Help with creating a business continuity plan quickly to get your organization back to business after a terrorist attack, tornado, fire or flood.

http://www.redcross.org/
The American Red Cross site contains a wealth of information regarding disaster and emergency situations, as well as business continuity planning.

http://www.rothstein.com/
Disaster recovery information regarding the industry's principal source for hundreds of books, software tools, videos and research reports.

www.sba.gov/services/disasterassistance/disasterpreparedness/index.html
The U.S. Small Business Administration site addresses disaster assistance and prevention for small businesses.

http://www.score.org/disaster_preparedness.html
Score has numerous local community sites offering small businesses with face-to-face and e-mail counseling for disaster-related events and issues.

http://www.availability.com/
A vendor-neutral site committed to the improvement of Information System processes and information/data management systems, with links to resources to help educate, analyze and remedy business continuity.

http://www.infosyssec.net/infosyssec/security/buscon1.htm
This is a comprehensive computer and network-security resource on the Internet for information system security professionals.