The American Red Cross Offers Free Resources to Help Your Business Prepare for Disasters

Article prepared by Dennis Guseman
American Red Cross Volunteer and Ready Rating Program Lead
Former Dean of the College of Business Administration at California State University San Marcos

It is not a question of if your business will experience a disaster, but when will it happen. Whether it be an earthquake, fire, flood or cyber-attack, a disaster will likely occur. The American Red Cross created several free programs to help small businesses and individuals prepare, respond and recover from these inevitable disasters.
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The Ready Rating Program is a free, web-based, self-paced organizational emergency preparedness program that helps organizations of all types prepare appropriately, respond effectively and recover quickly from disasters and other emergencies. This program meets or exceeds OSHA requirements for disaster preparedness for small businesses. This program provides a self-assessment of your organization’s preparedness for disasters in five areas and based upon your responses provides suggestions for next steps, along with resources to help implement those steps. In addition, the Ready Rating Program has templates for developing an Emergency Action Plan (EAP) required by organizations with ten or more employees. This free program is available at ReadyRating.org.
 
In addition to preparing your business for potential disasters, it is also important for your employees to be prepared. Your employees are not likely to be available to assist you with your business’ recovery if they are having to deal with their own disaster at home. To address this issue the Red Cross has a free presentation on disaster preparedness for individuals and families. This presentation explains what everyone should have in a disaster preparedness kit, how to develop a plan to respond to disasters, and how to stay informed.
 
The Red Cross can also conduct a free class on Hands-Only CPR for your employees. Most people who survive a cardiac arrest are helped by a bystander. This life-saving technique is easy to learn and can be mastered by anyone in just a few minutes.
 
Another program the Red Cross can provide is an Active Threat presentation that provides your employees information on how to properly respond if such circumstance occurs at your business or in another public place. This presentation deals with the three major actions that your employees should take in the event of an active shooter – run, hide or fight.
 
To learn more about the local Red Cross and the Community Preparedness programs available, please visit redcross.org/sandiego. (link to: https://www.redcross.org/local/california/san-diego/about-us/our-work/community-preparedness.html
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