Recovery & Mitigation

After a disaster, facilities, equipment and stock may have been damaged or destroyed. You may be without power, water, sewer and phone services. The vendors and suppliers you rely on may not be operating. Your employees and customers may have experienced personal damage or loss. Damage to the area may limit access to your facility for an extended period of time.

This is when preparedness planning, training and exercise will pay off. This is also when you will be rewarded for the investments you have made in your facility to make it stronger and more resistant to flood, wind, fire and security breach.

An immediate return to normal day-to-day operations may not be possible. So your business must be prepared to be self-reliant and implement a continuity plan to carry it through the next several weeks or months. The survival of the business will depend on it.

The purpose of this section is to provide an overview of the concept of recovery operations. Knowing what to expect and planning ahead will minimize the financial impacts of the disaster and position your company to not only survive, but continue to provide a service to your community when it needs you the most. Preparedness can mean the difference between financial ruin and financial gain, victim or survivor, survivor or hero.

There are three overlapping periods of recovery:

Immediate Emergency Period
Short-Range Restoration Period
Long-Range Reconstruction Period

The length of time required for each period will vary, depending on the severity of the disaster and the local capability to recover quickly. The following graph is illustrative to depict the overlapping nature of the various periods. It does not imply that there is a generally accepted, pre-determined length of each phase.