Is Your Disaster Response Plan in Place?

Roofing contractors do their community a service by providing safe and dry shelter. But what happens when your business isn’t ready for the next big storm? Steve Slepcevic, CEO of Strategic Response Partners, shares what contractors can do to prepare for severe weather events so they’re ready to roll.

Strategic Response Partners is a network of experts who specialize in crisis management. When it comes to working in severe weather, there are important things contractors need to know, says Slepcevic, but among the most important is having a plan in place ahead of time.

“Being in a state of readiness, to serve your community, don’t be reactionary when that stuff comes. Pull the plan out and say, ‘Hey, we did this, we drilled it, and we’re ready to serve our community,” he says,

According to Slepcevic, the priorities for creating a plan should be:

• The individual
• Family
• Business

Bringing it to the contractor level, he said preparing for a storm is similar to how contractors have to deal with supply chain disruptions.

“Have a bigger stock of materials that’s sitting on your yard, not necessarily in the supply yard, right? Because if you've noticed, everything that we've bought earlier, costs just keep going up, right? I mean, between both past administrations, over $8 trillion has been printed … inflation's here, right?” he said. “Stock [your] warehouses up, get a little more material.”

By having the supplies in hand, says Slepcevic, you not only know you’re prepared to take on jobs but can plan ahead to secure supplies as soon as a storm starts brewing.

“You know it’s going to happen, you know we’re going to have a need for it,” he said. “That [Category 5 hurricane’s] going to tear roofs off. You’re waiting until you get the orders? No, order it now before it hits.”

Listen more for Slepcevic’s tips on how we should communicate during the big storm by viewing the video here or listening to the podcast.