Forethought pays huge dividends in disaster

Opus' Peter Mathewson says continuity plans often need more thought. Photo / Supplied

The Canterbury earthquakes are a timely reminder that infrastructure providers need to plan for business continuity following a natural disaster, says Peter Mathewson, managing director of Opus New Zealand.

The consultancy firm worked with Telecom, the Lyttelton Port Company and Orion Energy before the quakes to retrofit buildings and other assets to a higher level of resilience and provide greater surety of business continuity.

They had gone beyond their legal requirements so all were largely functional through the ensuing crisis. The initiative shown was an example to others, he says. "Appropriate forethought has paid huge dividends here."

"Telecom... were able to keep their network operating with minimal disruption to their landline and mobile services," he says.

Telecom's Emergency Response Plan, developed with Opus over the past 15 years, was unique in that it allowed Opus to respond proactively in an emergency. After a disaster, the immediate focus was on getting staff and contractors access to buildings that house Telecom's exchanges and equipment.

Opus teams went in to assess damage and worked on repairs to allow immediate occupancy. Opus had already helped Telecom strengthen its buildings to a level required to maintain business continuity.

Lyttelton Port was up and running 96 hours after the February earthquake, despite being hard-hit. Opus had partnered with the company over the previous 10 years to strengthen things like wharf pile foundations and coal-handling facilities.

"When the first quake hit, our team was mobilised to provide emergency response support. They assisted the Port with temporary repairs and continued assessing damage after each quake, helping make decisions that kept operations going. "

Orion Energy spent $6-7 million upgrading assets over the past 15 years. "They believe it saved them 10 times that in damage to their network, let alone downtime. That's a huge return."

Although Business Continuity Plans were a normal part of any business risk management programme, these often needed more thought, Mathewson said.

Building and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson recently conceded (One News, 16/8/12) an estimated 40,000 commercial buildings nationwide did not meet current earthquake standards. "The reality is that to strengthen or rebuild all of those buildings to withstand major damage would send New Zealand broke." Buildings certainly need to be "life safe" but not all need to be "business safe".

Not all business owners needed to spend large amounts of money retrofitting a building. "It might just be coming up with contingencies, like relocating staff to work from home during a natural disaster."

Critical infrastructure providers needed to meet at least 100 per cent of the code, while others were only required to meet 33 per cent, meaning buildings would suffer damage but not fall down and threaten lives.

Tenants should get structural assessments and choose buildings with an appropriate level of strength dependent on the level of continuity of business for their particular operation.

"It'll be interesting to see how building owners take up the challenge in future years." Mathewson says businesses need to have a properly developed Asset Management Plan. "It's important to maintain assets on a day-to-day basis in order to minimise damage and disruption."

Disaster scenario planning revealed that the most inconspicuous element could halt a whole operation.