By DAVE HOOK.
Now that we’re past the first day of spring it’s time to start planning for two important seasons ahead: Hurricane and wildfire. According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), hurricane season begins May 15 for the Eastern Pacific and June 1 for the Atlantic. Both end on Nov. 30. For those who live and work in places where you are sure that hurricane season is of little concern, you may have a wildfire season to consider. Sorry, there’s no definite nationwide start and stop date for wildfire season because wildfire season is regional, based upon the local flora, and highly dependent upon the weather.
I’m sure that some of you are asking yourselves, “Hey, what’s a security guy doing writing about disaster recovery?” Disaster recovery — or any other sort of recovery — is one of the steps in business continuity planning. Many public airports are essentially business parks that have runways, focus on aviation, and have many diverse businesses as tenants. Keeping the business of general aviation alive and well is part of the security — the protection of assets — of general aviation.
I won’t bore you with statistics, but most small and medium sized businesses can recover when something important is stolen or destroyed, like an airplane or fuel truck. But few of those businesses return and recover when their place of business is destroyed. That’s why the U.S. Small Business Administration provides resources to prepare for and harden against disasters on the front end and to pick up from and recover in the aftermath of a disaster.
Here are useful links for free resources that can help you prepare for the upcoming hurricane and wildfire seasons. Click here for tips on how to prepare for a disaster. Click on this link for some excellent advice on how to cut recovery time and costs. And while I hope you never need it, click on this link for information concerning some of the recovery assistance resources available to get your airport, flight school, FBO, or other business up and running once again.
As the old adage goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Fly safe, and be secure!