Red Cross program prepares businesses for emergencies

Tyler Corder knows disaster can strike a business at any time.

“We’ve had minor items come up occasionally,” said Corder, the chief financial officer at Findlay Automotive Group. “We’ve had a couple small fires. We’ve had someone have a heart attack in one of our showrooms. A few minor incidences.”

Corder said events like these are why the company took part in the Red Cross’ Ready Rating Program, a free online safety assessment that helps businesses develop or improve their emergency action plan.

How it works

According to a 2018 release from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, almost 40 percent of small businesses never reopen their doors after a disaster. According to the agency’s website, a disaster is an event that has resulted in severe property damage, deaths, or multiple injuries.

An emergency could be anything from a fire to a widespread outage or active shooter situation, said Alan Diskin, the executive director of the American Red Cross of Southern Nevada.

“Most companies don’t have a plan for how to respond and continue to do business with a disaster,” Diskin said. “A vast majority (of small businesses) aren’t thinking about disaster.”

The Ready Rating Program assesses businesses on their current safety standards and rates their preparedness for a disaster. It then offers tutorials, online videos and other interactive tools on disaster readiness.

Corder said it took about 20 minutes to answer all the questions.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires all businesses with 11 or more employees to have an emergency action plan in writing. Diskin said this tool can help.

“The whole idea … is to have a plan that ensures that in the case of disaster, a company will survive the disaster and get back to normal as quickly as possible,” he said. “That’s a pretty vital tool.”

Diskin said the program is especially useful for small- and medium-sized businesses.

Lisa Riggleman, director of guest experience at the Neon Museum, said the program has been an indispensable tool.

“We’re a nonprofit,” she said. The tool is free, “so a very, very fair (price). It has enabled us to continue with a safety and security plan. … We were able to see where those gaps may be as more people visit.”

Growing need to prepare

Diskin said that as natural disasters like fires and hurricanes proliferate, being prepared is more important than ever.

A 2018 federal report states that the continued release of greenhouse gases will make fires more frequent and that the intensity of hurricanes is expected to increase.

“I think disasters today are making the point that they can happen anywhere at any time,” Diskin said.

Riggleman said weather is at the forefront of the Neon Museum’s mind.

“We’re an outdoor space,” she said. “When it snows, when it rains, when it’s warm outside, we want to be sure people are safe in those conditions.”

Corder said the ready rating program helped Findlay Automotive Group’s 34 locations synchronize their plans.

“The big concern I had is we have varying levels of compliance of readiness at our various locations,” he said. “It certainly raised our level of awareness.”

The program also helped point out minor errors the company was making, Corder said, like not labeling all liquid containers.

“We have found some things that we weren’t doing as well as we thought we were,” Corder said. “This is a good way to check to make sure things are being done.”

Contact Bailey Schulz at bschulz@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0233. Follow @bailey_schulz on Twitter.