Preparing for a Natural Disaster: What I Wish I’d Known Before Hurricane Helene

This month marks one year since Hurricane Helene hit my area and countless others in the South. When all was said and done, this storm wreaked havoc only second to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. While I could list dozens of statistics to reflect the losses here, I won’t. I’m still recovering from my own trauma in living through a natural disaster. As the one-year anniversary is near, I feel sicker to my stomach every day.

Having worked in strategy and human resources for the last 25 years, I’ve sat in hundreds of risk assessment discussions for every imaginable scenario. Heck, I even managed a large operations unit at a national bank during the Y2K scare. Anybody remember that? While I’ve got lots of learning experience, surviving Hurricane Helene gave me lived experience – which feels different.

In this newsletter, I’m sharing what I wish I had known before Hurricane Helene hit our area. Like so many, what we thought was a medium-sized weather event turned too quickly into total devastation. I encourage every organization to have the following conversations now so you can be prepared when something happens. I can promise you that these kinds of plans reduce stress in the moment and increase certainty within leadership.

LESSON #1 – Know How to Find Your People without Technology

When Hurricane Helene struck here with force, our county was left without power, internet, cell service, water, and 911 service. Most people were either trapped in their homes or unable to get out due to vehicle loss. We had seven large trees laying on our house with trees blocking our garage and road. As we sat on our back porch in disbelief, we saw neighbors walking around to check on others.

What would you do if you were the senior leader for an organization and this happened? How would you find your people to see if they are safe? Here are some stories I heard.

·       Teachers driving around to student homes to check on them. It took five days, but this team of teachers confirmed all students alive and safe in our county.

·       Employees leaving handwritten notes on their office building doors to let others know they are alive and safe when people returned to the building.

·       Neighbors gathering in homes that had access to a generator or Starlink (satellite internet) so they could send messages to loved ones.

·       Community members seeking cell service at key locations (like the local hospital) and sharing information in person while gathered.

·       Families using the emergency feature on iPhones to send texts to loved ones in other areas.

These were ways to find each other in the quiet and scary moments post-storm. Finding each other was a gift.  

Remember learning about fire safety when you were a kid? The instructor always recommended a pre-determined meeting spot outside of the burning house so you could quickly know who was safe. Knowing how to find your people without technology has that kind of energy.

While you may not know what communication impacts will happen in your natural disaster, having a plan and communicating it before the storm is a start.

LESSON #2 – Take Care of Your People

Of course, I’m assuming that you will do what is best for your employees and organizations. However, not every employer here was quick to communicate that sentiment.

Our local schools were closed for six weeks due to extensive sewer system damage. While teachers were looking for students, custodians and bus drivers were unsure if they would be paid while schools were closed. The confirmation of being paid took weeks to communicate. In that time, these employees were volunteering with recovery efforts and rebuilding their own homes with the additional (and frankly unnecessary) stress of not knowing about six weeks of pay.

Your situation will look different based on damage to your building and operations. However, here are some steps you can take:

1.      Pay people no matter what. I realize this may not be feasible for small businesses with large impacts but do the best you can. And communicate it immediately.

2.      Enact your benefits such as EAP access and time to volunteer. Additionally, share local resources quickly and often. For instance, share the nearest food and supply distribution sites.

3.      Lean into local resources like therapists, government officials, and national nonprofits. I was leading the local food pantry during Helene recovery. We asked Red Cross leaders to speak with employees and volunteers to provide support and hope.

4.      Open your home (if possible) to your employees. When 9/11 happened, I had just moved to Charlotte, NC, three weeks before. My new boss invited me to her home for dinner that night because she knew I was navigating a national disaster by myself in a new city. I will never forget that, and I repaid that kindness by inviting my employee and her family to stay with us after Helene.

5.      Be willing to shift operations. Your organization may not be able to function for a few weeks after a natural disaster; however, you can still help your community by sending employees to volunteer other places or offering your expertise, leadership, or space to support recovery efforts.

LESSON #3 – Leverage Technology and Emergency Tools Now

You may be surprised to learn that many organizations, especially small businesses and nonprofits, have limited technology capacity. When I started with a local nonprofit in 2014, they were still using paper time sheets. Yikes! In 2024, I was still surprised by how many organizations lost key documents in Hurricane Helene because they didn’t have any digital backups. Key documents like client files, legal documents, and financial records.

Here are my recommendations:

·       Lean into backup systems, such as generators and cloud-based IT. The food pantry where I worked had generators, which thankfully saved thousands of dollars of food when we most needed it.

·       Consider alternative connection points, especially in rural areas. I live in a place where I can only access the internet through satellite providers. Starlink never failed for us during the storm, and many Starlink systems were installed in the area after the storm due to their reliability.

·       Update insurance plans annually. Many organizations and homeowners found themselves in a huge pinch when they realized that they were either underinsured or didn’t have flood insurance. After the 2016 Gatlinburg, TN, fires, I was managing operations at a nonprofit with large swaths of woodlands. We had to reassess our fire risk, change our insurance plans, and complete fire prevention work.

This is just a start. As Benjamin Franklin said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Trust me – you will thank yourself for the prevention activities.

LESSON #4 – Over-Communicate

I’ve already shared stories where communicating was a challenge or non-existent. However, communication is CRITICAL during times of high uncertainty. Think of multiple ways to communicate, such as email, written notes, texts, website posts, etc. You are building a crisis communications plan.

I found the following definition for crisis communications:

“Crisis communication is a strategic approach to managing and disseminating information during emergencies or challenging situations to protect an organization's reputation and maintain public trust.”

I would add “and to care for your employees.” At the food pantry, I found that weekly emails to volunteers provided a sense of regular connection during a stressful time. In my efforts to provide as much information as possible, my emails became long. A sweet volunteer shared that the emails were too long, so I adjusted to using bullet points with key information in bolding so volunteers could skim the email and get the information quickly.

Here are some ideas:

·       Share your disaster readiness plan before the event happens. While your plan may need to adjust after the event, sharing a plan ahead of time allows people to focus on quick actions rather than emotionally spinning at the lack of direction.

·       Listen to the warnings. The story of the Texas summer camp flooding crushed my heart this year because I could have seen something very similar happening in Helene. In my own lived experience, I am evacuating myself and others in the warning phase because emergencies just happen too fast now.

·       Communicate quickly and often. Consider a daily or weekly email to key stakeholders with updates, ways to help, and operations status.

·       Update the plan annually. Too often we create plans with good intentions and leave them at the wayside when they aren’t used. Build an annual practice of reviewing your plan and updating it annually so you are prepared. Even updates on employee cell phone numbers are a huge help.

All of these ideas are just a starting point. I encourage you to take these ideas and build a plan that works for your specific situation. As I recover from my own natural disaster trauma, I plan to share more resources over the next few months. You can listen to my disaster relief story here (November 2024) or read about the after effects here (May 2025).

Hurricane Helene devastated my area on September 27, 2024. As we approach the one year anniversary, I want to honor those who lost their lives, those who rushed to help in unsafe conditions, and those who rebuilt their lives while living in a distressful environment. The trauma of a natural disaster is real. Sending all the love to you.