LI businesses urged to prepare for disaster
Long Island businesses were cautioned in a May meeting to prepare for all kinds of disasters, such as Tropical Storm Irene, which made it necessary for these Patchogue men to use a canoe to traverse Smith Street. Credit: Newsday, 2011 / Thomas A. Ferrara
Call them worrywarts. They don't care. The emergency planners who met Friday at an Islandia hotel had a message they believe is important for Long Island businesses: You don't worry enough -- or plan enough -- for disasters, such as storms, terror attacks and pandemics.
Richard Gimbl, Islip Town's director of emergency management and a former New York City firefighter who raced to Ground Zero after the 9/11 terror attacks and spent four sleepless days there, said in an interview that only about 25 percent of businesses, on Long Island or anywhere else, are prepared for natural or other types of disasters.
Why so? "Complacency," Gimbl said. "When something happens we scramble," he said. But mostly, only then.
About 100 people turned out for the fourth annual Business Preparedness Symposium sponsored by the Long Island chapter of the Association of Contingency Planners, at the Hyatt Regency Windwatch in Islandia.
Terry Winters, a private-sector liaison with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, threw out some questions to the audience: "What are your plans?" "How are you going to keep [employees'] paychecks coming" in the event of a disaster?
Dr. Dennis Russo, director of public health for Suffolk County's Health Department, said in an interview that pandemics have occurred in the United States before, and may well again. Flu inoculations are one answer, he said.
Islip Town supervisor Tom Croci said businesses should not rely 100 percent on government for help in disasters. "Be accountable for your people," Croci said.
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