PI suffered a mini disaster during the storm on 6/14. We suffered a complete power loss to our building 6/14-16 caused by a circuit breaker failure. We set up a temporary offsite office within a few hours and continued to service our clients. Thanks to Agility Recovery, Interwest Properties, our IT director, and our staff.  We had a good basic Disaster Plan and our President, Kelly Miller was onsite to make quick decisions that allowed us to operate.  Agility Recovery set up a Voice Mail box and our phone company forwarded all calls to that number.  We would then retrieve the messages and take them to the proper person to return the calls from cell phones.  Our IT department moved 3 of our servers and 7 workstations to a building operated by our management company, Interwest Properties, and we were back up and operating the same day.  We do have a backup offsite server but we were able to use our existing server as there was no damage to it.  We then moved our entire office back two days later within a few hours to get back to business after installing new electrical equipment in the building. We can testify to the importance of having a disaster plan.  It is well worth the time to implement before it's too late.

Pictures from Event

Plan ahead for evacuation.

Businesses located in disaster prone areas (such as hurricane, tornado, ice storm and earthquake zones) should develop an evacuation plan directing employees to a safe and pre-established area, and then recover business operations in the same location. You will have employees on-hand to begin working again, rather than spending days or weeks trying to locate them.

For more information on creating your evacuation plan, visit Ready.gov.

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Think about relationships.

Operations and supply chains are reliant upon external relationships, particularly if you're a small or mid sized business. Take an active interest in the disaster recovery plans of your vendors and partners to ensure your business will not be effected if a supplier suffers a disaster or interruption. If your vendors fail, it increases the chance your business will also fail during a recovery situation. You're only as strong as your weakest link.

Thanks to Agility Recovery.  To receive these tips weekly CLICK HERE.

I keep reading about workers comp reform efforts at the state level but I don’t think anybody really understands the whole issue.  They said they did not want to change the court system to an administrative system.  The court system IS the problem.  When you have to go to court, look up and see a judge wearing a robe in a court setting and the insurance carrier has an attorney present, you naturally think you need an attorney.  Why not make this a less formal setting, and have administrators set up in conference rooms, meet with the parties, settle claims and eliminate the court system?

Any reforms that are done will then be challenged in higher courts and many will be thrown out.  Meanwhile we in Oklahoma sit here paying almost double what the folks in Arkansas pay for their workers comp insurance.  We are higher than almost any state in our entire region and it’s not because of our benefit levels paid to workers.  We need real reform and real people to step forward and make the necessary changes that will stick.