Preparing your disaster recovery plan

A disaster recovery plan will outline what needs to be done, how and by whom to achieve these objectives efficiently and safely.

The purpose of planning ahead is to minimise injury to people and damage to buildings and contents, save time and help to get things back to normal as soon as possible.

Your plan will comprise of a number of pieces of information or documents under the following headings:

• Tasks and responsibilities prior to and during an incident
• Emergency plan: information, actions and equipment needed in the first 48 hours
• Communications plan: wider messaging, the media and who to update
• Recovery plan: including salvage, restoration and preparing for the future.

The plan will be specific to your premises and collections and should:

• Be prepared in consultation with relevant stakeholders and where necessary, relevant authorities and emergency services
• Include all possible emergency situations – anything from storm damage to a bomb scare
• Be numbered and dated so it is clear everyone is working to the same version
• Be stored securely in an accessible location and copies in secure off site locations, electronically and/or with key members of staff.

If you are responsible for smaller or private premises, there may only be one of you or few people to carry out tasks. In this instance, you should focus efforts on the most critical tasks and work with emergency services and local authorities to achieve others.

In larger premises it makes sense to form a disaster recovery team to spread the actions between several people and ensure that in the event of a disaster there is a clear chain of command and everyone has a defined role.

The following tasks, which is not an exhaustive list, should be assigned to individuals. Depending on the size of your team, it may be that one person performs more than one task, but there should be one single point of co-ordination to whom everyone reports.

• Prepare the disaster recovery plan; compiling all relevant and useful information in one document and storing it safely on and off site, accessible to those who may need it.
• Liaise with the emergency services, especially Fire and Rescue Service to obtain their advice and discuss their fire-fighting strategy
• Conduct training so that anyone likely to be involved in disaster recovery understands the role/s they may be required to perform.
• Desktop exercises are a useful way to test your plan
• Subscribe to a reputable disaster recovery company to assist with salvage and restoration.

• Co-ordinate activity – assign tasks and have an overview of all activity when an incident occurs.
• Notify and liaise with the necessary emergency services about the incident and inform them of any hazardous
  materials or substances.
• Implement health and safety procedures such as:
  - Shut down utilities
  - Distribute any Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to those who require it
  - Organise logistical support where needed such as transport or a cordon
  - Inform immediate neighbours if they could become affected
• Evacuate everyone on site, ensuring that everyone has exited the building to a designated safe area and identify anyone not accounted for and where they may be located.
• Administer first aid where you’re able to do so, gather as much information as possible to assist medical services.
• Ensure the building is safe and secure and if you’re not able to do so, assist the emergency services to do so.
• Co-ordinate the removal of objects, adhering to pre-established order of priority, using salvage cards if necessary. Set up an emergency salvage area for the initial treatment of damaged items. Assist anyone handling the items to know how to do so safely.
• Arrange temporary security if regular measures are compromised.
• Notify your broker and the insurance company and discuss/request any necessary assistance in the protection of buildings and contents.
• Manage and control the flow of information in a timely manner to ensure accuracy and consistency. This may include communication with stakeholders, staff/volunteers, visitors, investors, your local authority, utility companies, the media and social media.

Lastly your ability to respond, should always be planned with the worst possible scenario in mind. It is relatively easy to scale down a large-scale response for a smaller incident, but virtually impossible to do the opposite!

Each individual involved in disaster recovery, whatever the size of your team, should be fully aware of what their role entails and training in that role is advisable including the use of any equipment necessary to fulfil the role. It is also vitally important that their understanding of the plan overall is not simply theoretical.

Testing the plan is necessary, more frequently in the initial stages and ideally half-yearly going forward. Desktop and practical exercises should be undertaken to enable team members to anticipate problems, work to avoid potential disasters and to adapt to any changing circumstances.

The plan should also be included in induction training for new starters with any element of disaster recovery included in their role. More things will be learned from things going wrong during a practical drill than a perfectly executed desktop exercise.

Practical aspects of training should include knowledge of the property and its valuable contents, identifying objects on the salvage or ‘snatch’ list, understanding the handling and care of different salvageable objects and regular rehearsals of the emergency evacuation procedure.

Training should also be given in respect of basic ladder safety, manual handling and working safely in adverse conditions (avoiding trips and slips, falling objects, smoke inhalation, etc.). Ideally one member of the team should be a qualified first aider.

Personal protective equipment including identification, hard hats, fluorescent jackets, steel-toed boots/shoes, torches and so on, should also be provided.