Experiences in Business Continuity Planning

Every year, power outages, floods, computer system failures, tornadoes, earthquakes, extreme cold, chemical spills, and other crises seriously impact utilities. Business Continuity Planning provides the basis for resilience of a utility’s essential functions and critical resources, including key personnel. Most water and wastewater utilities have spent time in recent years assessing their security and planning for their initial response to various forms of disasters. These efforts have produced Vulnerability Assessments (VA), Emergency Operations Plans (EOP) and Emergency Response Plans (ERP) that focus on the initial response to an incident. A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) goes a step farther to keep a utility or other organization in business following incidents. Those water and wastewater utilities that have survived major disruptive events can attest to the return on investment of being prepared and business continuity planning is now an integral part of the preparedness portfolio.