Tuesday TIP # 5

Do you have a “SNOW DAY PLAN”, “HURRICANE PLAN”, or a “FLOOD EVACUATION PLAN”?

You may not need any of these, but if you don’t have them, , , that’s invariably when you need them. Maybe you need to consider other situations depending upon where you live, , , like “TORNADO PLAN”, “DUST STORM PLAN”, or simply “POWER OUTAGE PLAN”.

In Atlanta, we always needed a “SNOW DAY PLAN”. It doesn’t snow often in Atlanta but when it does it usually starts with rain, turns to sleet, then ice and finally, , , snow. In doing so, the roads are coated with a layer of ice which is great for sledding but not so good for driving. The real challenge is that it can shut the city down and because the Atlanta area is so hilly you can’t get out of your neighborhood to access the roads that are cleared. It’s a mess!! In many industries like hospitals the business must continue to operate so you need a contingency plan.

You Need a Contingency Plan!!

What made me think of writing this post is what happened to me this past weekend. On Friday, Eddie (my son) had an outpatient medical procedure. At 8:00pm he started having a fever. Eddie has medical challenges that cause us to visit the emergency room and hospital, , , 7 times in 2021-2022. It had been over a year, but I recognize the fever symptoms all too well.

His temperature was up and down all day on Saturday, , , normal most of the day but at 5:00pm it spiked to 102.5. What has been worrying me is that we are expecting a major snow storm Sunday night and Monday, , , my instinct is that I’ll need to make the call by Sunday morning sometime as to whether we need to get to the hospital. If it snows, an ambulance will not be able to get up our hill until the roads are cleared. This puts Eddie at risk.

Well, his fever spiked again at midnight on Saturday night and went to 103.2. At this point, there is no decision to make, , , I dial 911 and we take Eddie to the ER at 1:00am Sunday morning. It’s a good thing because we got 7 inches of snow on Sunday night and Monday.

Eddie has an infection that causes the high fever, , , the hospital is where we need to be. If he had continued to have fever episodes I would have made the call Sunday morning to get him to the hospital because we have seen these symptoms so many times before.

My point with all of this is that I was making decisions based upon anticipating “snow day” and the implications it would create for us.

If your business can be adversely affected by weather conditions or other challenges, you need a contingency plan that puts you in the best position to minimize the impacts of such situations. In Atlanta, we created a “SNOW DAY ACTION PLAN”. In one company, our primary data center was in Atlanta with dozens of remote offices spread across the United States connected through our wide area network. If Atlanta went down, our whole company was down, , , not something we could afford to happen.

So, when we heard snow and ice was in the forecast we executed our “SNOW DAY ACTION PLAN”, , , specific steps documented to help us prepare for and to minimize the impact of the storm headed our way.

When you have an action plan to offset these things it gives you peace of mind, reduces stress, and allows you to be in the best possible position to “take care of business”.

This is exactly how it helped me this past weekend with my son.

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