Several weeks ago, a tornado hit several states in the Midwestern region, causing significant damage to local businesses, religious establishments and private homes as well as injuring a number of citizens.

While there has been a grassroots effort to assist those affected by the tornado, federal relief funds were only approved late last week.

Consequently, natural disasters like these remind business officials how important is to be prepared to address emergency circumstances well before they happen, as there will likely be a lag between the event's occurrence and formally mobilized assistance.

However, especially for small companies that have fewer employees handling more tasks, devoting time and energy to creating the appropriate disaster provisions in a business continuity plan may be a stretch. Therefore, it would benefit business officials to deploy a disaster preparedness consultant in order to facilitate a proper plan on an expedited timeline.

For example, such a consultant can be sure that a business has properly backed up all of its data and negotiated the best price possible for remotely located hot sites so operations can continue immediately after an emergency with the full scope of data available to ensure that ROI goals are not delayed. 

Moreover, a disaster preparedness consultant can help facilitate emergency communications with clients. By factoring this consideration into a business continuity plan, customers will know exactly how a company will address emergency conditions, clearing any confusion and mitigating the potential that customers will become frustrated and patronize a competitor.

A disaster consultant can also work with a business to draft a plan that utilizes a wide variety of communications channels so that if one becomes compromised, business officials can still effectively relay important information to staff and customers.

By taking these preventative measures, a company will be optimally prepared to deal with an event like a tornado independently rather than waiting weeks for federal aid.