Business Partners Exchange
Planning – Assess Risks
What are the potential emergencies that might affect your business?
The Office of Emergency Management has identified and assessed the various hazards and risks to public safety that could give rise to emergencies and has identified the facilities and other elements of the infrastructure that are at risk of being affected by emergencies. They can generally be grouped into three categories:
- Natural Events – severe weather, floods, blizzards, tornadoes, food or human health emergencies;
- Human-caused Events and Accidental Hazards – incidents intended to do harm to public safety and security, civil disorder, war, bomb threats, improvised explosive devices and improvised dispersal devices. Chemical, biological, radiological and/or nuclear agents may be used on their own, or in combination with these devices.
- Technological & Infrastructure Disruptions – incidents involving hazardous materials, utility and power failures, transportation accidents, aircraft crashes, water supply failures, building or structural collapse, critical resource shortages, or computer-related incidents.
Assessing risks can range from a simple self-assessment exercise to an extensive, in depth study. The size, scope and type of your organization will determine your risk assessment requirements.
- Research the kinds of emergencies that might affect your organization – both internally and externally.
- Risk assessment is not able to identify all threats, and estimates are based on historic information. By focusing on the most urgent functions of the business the Risk Assessment can be reduced to a more manageable scope.
- You must consider appropriate measures to transfer the risk (insurance), Accept the risk (where impact may be low), Reduce the risk (introduce controls), Avoid the risk (remove the cause of threat).