Things to Expect in a Flood

1. When the Flood comes, expect mobility to suffer.
To ensure the safety of your team, you should either let them go home earlier, or stay in at the center. Once the flooding hits, rising waters will prevent most vehicles from travelling the flooded roads. Expect staffing levels to be adversely affected.

2. Within 4 hours, expect power to be cut.
Power utilities will normally cut of power to minimize the risk of electrocution. Tune up and check up your generators before hand. Ensure that you have a steady supply of fuel that will last you as long as the floods. In our area, floods normally last up to 3 days. Dont expect your pantry’s microwave to work. Ensure that you have enough LPG (gasul) to ensure that you can boil water (for coffee) and cook food.

Local Radio stations will be off the air too. This further aggravates the situation as the main source of news and updates are now gone. Go to facebook and see what people are posting. This is now the secondary source of news for you.

3. Within 12 hours, expect communication to be cut.
This is about the longest time the backup power of cell sites and telco substations can last without power. Effectively, you will be cut off from your team. Either setup a radio system before hand, or best yet, have them at the center itself. Make sure you have provisions of water, and food for 1 week. In our area, the Globe Cell sites were the first to go. Thankfully, SMART cell sites were still up and running.

4. Your stakeholders will be alarmed. Your Clients, Principals, Partners all have a need to know your center’s status. Even if its bad news, tell them as it is. Your stakeholders can act on the information sooner and have more options available to them.

5. Cash. Keep Cash in hand for those emergency purchases. Don’t count on ATM or credit cards to tide you over. When the power goes down, so does the ATM networks! Your staff may need money on loan to tide them over the calamity too.

If you have more to add please feel free to comment.