Planning for disasters on LI and elsewhere

After Katrina and other natural and unnatural disasters, Walter Poggi began to worry about how his company, Ronkonkoma-based Retlif Testing Laboratories, would cope with a hurricane or other unexpected crisis.

"Katrina and 9/11 start to resonate in your head," said Poggi, Retlif's president.

Two former active-duty U.S. Coast Guard officers, Mike Griffin and Peter Sammis, were able to help him. They had formed what is quickly becoming one of the busiest companies at the new Morrelly Homeland Security Center in Bethpage: Strategic Planning Partners Llc.

The company's third director is Terri Sinski. Griffin and Sammis met with Poggi, who worried about the impact of hurricanes on his facilities in Ronkonkoma and in Goffstown, N.H., which is near a river.

In short order, Griffin and Sammis put together a plan that educated employees as to what they could do at home so they would be better able to come to work, provided an understanding of what local response agencies were available, and suggested significant information-technology upgrades, among other things.

"We mostly go to small and midsized businesses and look at [the impact] of floods, fires, regional disasters and pandemics," said Griffin, who added that the business of consulting on disasters has grown dramatically since 9/11 and Katrina.