Is Erika going to be a bad girl?

Ten questions to get you started on a severe weather continuity plan.

Tropical Storm Erika has caused at least 4 deaths and widespread flooding as she moves past Dominica and Puerto Rico.  The current forecast model cone suggests a path right over Florida with Miami impacted early Monday morning (31 Aug).  The model is uncertain because traveling through the Caribbean could strengthen Erika into a hurricane, steer her toward the Carolinas, or just create mild to moderate flooding and wind.   

Florida is a huge retail market for Home Depot, Lowes, CVS, Walgreens, Walmart and many other retailers.  The east coast of the U.S. has millions of people in several large cities.  With a possible impact from Tropical Storm Erika less than three days away, now is the time to evaluate the risk Hurricane Erika poses to your business. This is a great exercise for not only this storm but also so that you can quickly and proactively act when the next storm is on the horizon.  

Ten Questions to Start Your Severe Weather Planning

1. Are my products impacted by the severe weather?  
2. What products are impacted?
3. Is the impact from the severe weather before, during, after, all the above?
4. What are my retail customer’s policies for store operations before, during, and after severe weather?
5. How will I be kept up to date on actions my retail customers are taking as a result of severe weather?
6. Can I create and save reports with the SKUs and stores I expect would be impacted by a severe weather event?
7. Can I purchase weather alerts or data to more quickly initiate our planning process?  

Developing a detailed understanding of how severe weather could impact your business and then using that to create a comprehensive process map, with actionable steps, is critical to business success when a severe weather event occurs.   After you have created your plan review it in detail with your retail buyer and replenishment managers.  They are likely to have input which will strengthen the plan further, and it's also very possible they will be willing to share resources which are part of their severe weather plan like advanced weather forecasts, and emergency store operations communications you might not otherwise have been able to access.  Is there model for Tropical Storm Erika more detailed than generally available information right now?

I would also recommend adding Twitter into your communication monitoring process.  During a storm news travels very fast on Twitter.  If you have taken the steps above to identify specific stores you can monitor Tweets by simple saved searches and hashtags.  You can also send Tweets using hashtags if you want to get a message out quickly which is related to the weather and your product. 

Retail can be severely impacted by weather, but with proper planning allowing your business to act prior to a storm or react very rapidly to a storm, your business doesn't have to be negatively impacted. In fact, a severe weather event could be a tailwind for your business.