5 years, 8 months ago

Businesses learn hard lessons when not prepared for disaster

NEW YORK — When Hurricane Irma hit Puerto Rico in September 2017, Carlos Melendez couldn’t contact the staffers or customers of his San Juan-based technology firm, Wovenware. And even companies that do plan can be unprepared for the unique circumstances of a particular disaster — no owner in New Orleans could have predicted they’d be unable to operate for months, even years, after Hurricane Katrina turned the city and some of its suburbs into a ghost town in 2005. “Don’t expect your staff, even in the mental health field, to bounce back quickly and fully in a natural disaster,” Beasley learned. When Hurricane Harvey dumped more than 50 inches of rain in parts of the Gulf Coast in August 2017, Stewart Guss’s Houston-based law firm lost power for nearly a week, knocking out its phone system that would have handled hundreds of calls from prospective clients.

Associated Press
Disaster Storm Office Hurricane Work Firm Able Staffers Melendez Learn Mcmillan Beasley Guss His Staffers Wovenware

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