By Shera Dalin

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

 

The  St. Louis Chapter of the American Red Cross is urging businesses of all sizes across the region to be prepared for a disaster of any type or size with its new Ready Rating Program.

 

The agency rolled out the free pilot program in February and is encouraging businesses of all sizes to try it, says Red Cross Chapter Chief Executive Joe White.

 

White estimates that 40 percent of St. Louis businesses that suffer a fire, flood or other calamity don't reopen. Another 25 percent close within two years of a disaster.

 

"If you can get prepared for a disaster, your chances of your business and you surviving are much greater," White says.

 

The Marketing Committee of the chapter examined the issue of preparedness by holding focus groups and conducting surveys. What the committee found was "incredibly encouraging," White says.

 

Eight of 10 Americans say they would like to be prepared for a disaster, but they don't know how. If they did know how to be prepared, they would do so, the data showed.

 

"It became very evident to us that if we could make preparedness for a disaster simple and easy for a business, corporation or a school, people would take the steps to be prepared," White says.

 

So the Marketing Committee, chaired by Anheuser-Busch Marketing Vice President Dave Peacock, developed the Ready Rating Program with five steps to be prepared for a disaster. The five-step program, which is free, allows an organization to score itself on a scale of 1 to 65 on preparedness.

 

"It's trackable, traceable, measurable and simple," White says. "It asks are your staff members prepared for (cardiopulmonary resuscitation), are defibrillators on site, do employees with kids in school know how to be prepared at home, are disaster kits at home?"

 

The agency is concerned as much about home preparedness as it is about businesses or schools, White says.

 

"Individual preparedness is the most important piece of this. Our jobs are a lot easier if more individuals take steps to be prepared," he says.

 

The Red Cross responds to 1,200 single-family home fires each year. Often, agency workers will show up at a fire scene and find a family huddled on the curb in their pajamas as their house is ravaged by flames.

 

Having a disaster kit could save those families some worry, says White, who has three kits alone for his family. Such kits should contain a change of clothes for each family member, three bottles of water, first aid kit, blanket, flashlight, battery-powered radio, diapers if there are babies in the family, and a bit of cash in case ATMs aren't working.

 

Schools and nonprofits are encouraged to join Ready Rating as well. The Red Cross set a goal of five organizations, 10 corporations and 30 schools to join the program in the first year. Already, the goal for schools has been achieved. Anheuser-Busch, which donated $250,000 to launch the program, was the first corporation to join.

 

"We expect that we will have a substantial amount of participation," White says.

 

Once companies, schools and organizations have joined and worked through all the steps, the Red Cross asks that they review their plans annually.

 

"Each year you renew your membership and do an analysis again and rate yourself, hoping to increase the score," White says. "It's not a static program. And if you want it, we'll help you with it."

 

The Red Cross can conduct a lunch-and-learn session on skills such as CPR for organizations that request it.

 

Even large corporations such as Anheuser-Busch that have large-scale business-interruption contingency plans may find they have to adjust. After joining Ready Rating, the brewer discovered it needed to boost the number of employees who know how to perform CPR to meet the recommended percentages from the Red Cross, Peacock says.

 

"I don't think any company is prepared to the level that you need to be," he says.

 

As a company that often supplies drinking water to areas in a disaster, such as New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina or the recent tornadoes in Tennessee, Peacock says he hopes preparedness will spill over to the company's many vendors, distributors and customers.

 

"It applies to just about everything, whether it's a Cub Scout troop or a large company like Anheuser-Busch," he says.

 

The Red Cross hopes to roll out the pilot program to other chapters within 18 to 24 months. And even the federal government has expressed interest in it.

 

Homeland Security Department Assistant Secretary Alfonso Martinez-Fonts was recently on hand to make the announcement of the program in St. Louis. He says it could be something that the agency recommends as a model nationally. However, he said it isn't something that the agency would mandate.

 

'It's a leap to say that businesses would have to comply with any type of standard," Martinez-Fonts says. 'We're trying to let businesses figure this out and give them some suggestions. We think of this as somewhat aspirational."