How can you prepare your facility for extreme weather?

1. Review historical data, 2. Start your own monitoring (if public monitoring network is not sufficient), 3. Review legal requirements for design of your facilities, as well as requirements of international standards (i.e. ICMM guidance for the management of tailings site facilities in mining industry), 4. Respect the principle of Engineering rationality - avoid overdesigning and overcomplicating protection systems.

In this regard I often carryout a Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment procedure. Upon coming up with the environmental and social impacts I can then come up with suitable mitigation measures.

Preemptive risk assessment can indeed be a vital tool in averting catastrophic situations, yet occasionally, unforeseen emergencies can introduce novel hazards. Effectively mitigating these hazards hinges on adopting a proactive mindset and leveraging your expertise.

This should be done regularly as flood models are improved and updated. Important to consider how any changes you make to the site impact on the flood assessment. Also understanding access to the site by the workforce is critical.

We must equip ourselves with intelligent early warning systems for extreme climate events, capable of cross-referencing data from multiple sources, controlling the source data so that it is reliable, minimizing uncertainty. These systems must incorporate levels of danger/risk to subsequently facilitate the corresponding prevention and protection actions. It is important that the main actors, police, firefighters, civil protection, administrations, etc. participate in it. so that the alert system itself is a management system.

1) Following a developmental plan: When the design/ build inline with developmental plan specify by regulating authorities its help protect your facility from most likely hazards in that area 2) Develop an Environmental Management Plan/System: This help to predict hazards and appropriate actions for Mitigation 3) Facility Audit: Regularly carry out facility audit to ascertain when maintenance is necessary for sustainability 4) Landscaping: Landscaping helps to reduce environmental impact on your facility.

Furthermore, a crucial aspect of preparedness is to regularly review and update these preventive measures to stay ahead of evolving threats and technologies, ensuring the ongoing safety and resilience of your facility.

Consider flood risk at the design stage of any facility as changes to plans at this point can be inexpensive. Building in flood resilience during refurbs or site builds is cheaper than adding it later.

Many businesses rent premises. Do not overlook the role of the landlord and what their decisions after a flood might mean for your business.

To enhance this communication, consider conducting regular drills and tabletop exercises with your staff and engaging in open dialogues with clients and stakeholders. This collaborative approach fosters a shared understanding of potential challenges and strengthens the collective response, ultimately ensuring the safety and well-being of all involved parties during extreme weather events.

Build back better after a flood. Insurance repairs put things back to how they were but consider how you can use any payouts to make the site resilient. Where sites are not owned by the business, engagement with owners and their insurers will need to be managed.

I've never had an in person training for fire-drills, or active shooter-drills at work, only online training. I think it is imperative to customer and /employee safety to have this kind of in person training on a semi regular basis. We all did it as school children and even in college.