Economic Disaster Preparation

10 Steps to Prepare your Business for Evacuation.
If you are on evacuation alert or think you will be put on evacuation alert, there are some important steps you will want to consider. If you have an evacuation plan, review the plan and start the implementation process. If you do not have an evacuation plan, here are 10 things to consider.

The Ready Rating™ Program is a free service provided through a partnership between the Canadian Red Cross and the American Red Cross. Ready Rating is a program that helps businesses, schools and organizations become better prepared for disasters and other emergencies. All in one place, Ready Rating Members have access to one-of-a-kind tools, resources and information for evaluating and improving their ability to withstand disaster, maintain operations, and protect lives and property. Whether you are taking your first steps or have a fully-functioning emergency management program, the Ready Rating program can help you achieve a higher level of preparedness.

Destination BC - Emergency Preparedness Resources - Emergencies can impact travel, visitors, and businesses at any time, and potentially influence those who may be planning a trip to our province. Share information from official sources only, and consult the resources at the link to help you prepare and respond to emergencies.

Economic Recovery & Resiliency Manual
In disaster-impacted communities, economic development organizations often lead economic recovery efforts by helping local businesses respond to impacts on their employees, their facilities, and their customer and supply networks. All too often, economic recovery becomes a piecemeal reaction, rather than a planned response, when disaster strikes. The key is to take steps ahead of time to ensure your organization can stay in touch with local businesses after any type of major incident and to set up a plan of action for disaster response and recovery. This manual provides information designed to get your communities started in the pre-planning process for economic recovery. Communities that have a plan in place prior to a disaster can start on the road to recovery immediately and have a better chance of economic recovery.

Click here to download the BCEDA Economic Recovery and Resiliency Manual

Local Economic Recovery and Restart Toolkit
The Local Economic Recovery and Restart Toolkit provides a collection of resources developed to assist local councils, organizations and individuals involved in community economic recovery following an emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic, wildfires and floods.

Topics Include:

Local Economic Recovery Committees
Managing Economic Recovery Centres
Economic Recovery Action Plans
Economic Recovery Communication
Mental Health

Templates Include:

Local Economic Recovery Committee - First Meeting Agenda
Economic Recovery Manager - Duties and Responsibilities
Media Release - Opening of an Economic Recovery Centre
Economic Recovery Centre Intake Form
Economic Recovery Centre Daily Briefing
Economic Recovery Communication Strategy

Protecting Your Business/Community Data - Some communities and businesses may think that backup is sufficient for disaster recovery. However, when a business experiences an important IT outage, they realize sooner than later that having copies of data is not enough to keep the business running. Disaster Recovery and Data backup go hand in hand to support business continuity and are the foundation of a solid IT security strategy.

FREE Emergency Access to BC BusinessCounts - As part of our Economic Disaster Resiliency and Recovery Program, the BC Economic Development Association is offering every Indigenous, local and regional government in BC the opportunity to upload your Business License data to our BC BusinessCounts system for free. Losing all of your business data by not being prepared will slow your chance for recovery. All data is stored in Canada and will only be accessible to you and BCEDA. BCEDA does not use your data for any reason. In the event of an evacuation order issued for your community, we will assign you a temporary access to the system so that you can communicate with your businesses quickly throughout the evacuation and during the recovery.

BC Earthquake Alliance Projects

Building a culture of earthquake and tsunami preparedness. Founded in 2010, the British Columbia Earthquake Alliance (BCEA) is a Not-for-profit Society and our mission is dedicated to promoting awareness and enabling preparedness for earthquakes and tsunamis across British Columbia. ShakeOutBC is the major event hosted by the British Columbia Earthquake Alliance (BCEA).