Hurricane season is upon us once again, and every year it’s the same: Businesses know that there’s a good chance of being hit by a storm, but still think of it as something that they just have to deal with on an ad-hoc basis.
Past years have shown that hurricanes have a potentially devastating effect on the ability of a business to keep running, even if that business is only indirectly affected (for example, by a supplier being put out of commission). We dove into riskmethods data from the last five years to look at the top 3 hurricanes we sent the most alerts on, and the results weren’t surprising: Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Maria topped the charts. All together, these three storms resulted in the sending of 133 riskmethods alert to dozens of companies from a variety of industries. (How did we identify exactly what to send, and to what companies? Learn more about riskmethods Risk Intelligence™.)
Even if businesses have weathered hurricanes without a coordinated plan in the past, here’s the facts: It’s getting worse. Based on climate research from MIT, the number of storms with wind speeds over 250 km/hr has tripled since 1980 (more about climate change and risk). Maybe an ad-hoc plan worked before, but as companies become more global and major storms become more common, the most resilient businesses are ones that take a more proactive approach to hurricane risk.
So what are the top 3 things you should be thinking about when you make plans to keep your business afloat during hurricane season? Here’s the breakdown:
