Last month marked the 20th Anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake. Awareness of this landmark date was a part of my inspiration to write my blog entry on using vacations and sick leave as a small business stress test.

At that time I suggested that business owners make contingency plans and run drills for all variety of business obstacles, including the possibility of bridge closures. Last week the Labor Day repairs of the Bay Bridge failed and we were faced with the longest closure of that thoroughfare since the Loma Prieta quake.

For five days all transbay traffic was re-routed through BART, the ferry system, and the neighboring bridges.

While this bridge closure was no drill, we can use it in much the same way to evaluate our preparedness for potential repeats or more even severe calamities in the future.

• Did you have a telephone tree or other, similar, mechanism in place to quickly determine who was affected? Remember that in a real emergency cellular phone networks get overwhelmed faster than land lines.
• Were the affected employees still able to report into work in a timely manner?
• If not, could you be able to secure your employees local lodging and/or provide them with work that they could do remotely?
• Would you have been able to quickly ascertain and prioritize outstanding projects if the affected employees had been unable to make it to work at all?
• Does your business have an emergency kit capable of supporting your on-site employees in the case of a major emergency?

If you are looking for basic guidelines on what should be part of an emergency kit, or how your business should react to various types of disasters, you can look towards 72hours.org, the San Francisco disaster preparedness website. While the site is geared towards family preparedness and coordination, the same guidelines and advice can be re-tooled to the needs of a small business.