What’s up everybody. It’s Steve, the Hurricane here, and for today’s episode of A Drink With The Hurricane, we are gonna talk about emergency weather planning. Cheers!
Hi, so this is so funny. So last week’s episode, I was talking about how I was away, in Colorado, having an amazing time on that trip out there with one of my mastermind clients. And then in the first two days of the week after we had to be closed, because we were in the middle of a blizzard. And we had 15 plus inches of snow and we just couldn’t wait to work remotely. And so it made me think back to when I had my home care business and every snow storm and what was our procedures for snow storms. And I think about the rest of the country where maybe you may not get snow but you might get a hurricane that comes through or it could be tornadoes or inclement weather and things happen where there’s emergency situations and you have to shut down.
But because this is healthcare I can’t just close down business. People are literally dependent on us to live. What do you do? So it’s real simple. The first thing you have to do is you got to create a procedure and a policy. So you know where you live. You know what weather you have to deal with. So this isn’t the kind of thing that you need to make knee jerk, and it should never be something that you make knee jerk.
It should be something that you have a policy and procedure for. As a matter of fact in many States where you have a license, like I know here in New Jersey, you have to have emergency weather plans as part of your license. But I know every state in the country doesn’t have a license, so because of that, this is why I’m using this as a topic, you have to have a plan in place for everything. Make that part of your procedures. So, you know, first things first.
If it’s a hurricane, if it’s a blizzard, something of that nature, you have notice. Hurricanes don’t just form and make landfall overnight. Usually there’s a good seven to 10 days of planning and preparation just in case it hits that you can prepare for it in advance. Same thing with us here in New Jersey, where when we have a snow storm, I knew about the snow storm five days before we got the snow storm. Now, sometimes I hope it doesn’t hit but sometimes it does hit and having a plan in place is smart.
Second thing, what’s your plan? The good thing about the 21st Century is we can operate remotely. So make sure that you have everything you need, remote access for your office staff to be able to work from home and yes, I know if the power goes out, you can’t do, you have to do your best, right? ‘Cause if you’re in a hurricane, if you’re in a blizzard, the power might go out.
As a matter of fact, for me I had classes on Monday and Tuesday. I couldn’t do my classes on Tuesday because the internet was cutting out because everybody was home. Everybody taxing it, and I couldn’t use video. I couldn’t do Zoom calls, we’re dropping and everything else. So I had a plan B in place. And my plan B is I have coaches remotely. So one of my coaches in Iowa where it wasn’t snowing, she covered classes for me so that I didn’t have to worry about not being able to fulfill. That is an example of a plan, I put in place many, many moons ago, that how I executed it.
So make sure that you’re able to operate remotely and you have a plan in place just in case. The other thing you wanna do with it is have a plan for your caregivers and what they have to do, whether it’s calling in, calling out whether it’s calling every single one of your clients. And some of us, you’re only taking care of 20 people at home. And others of us are taking care of a hundred, 120 people and it’s a much larger process. Call around to each and every client.
Ask them, do they need the caregiver to come in? Now, this is healthcare. So I’m gonna just go out there and say this. This has happened to us many times with snow storms, when clients needed help, the caregiver went to the client’s house, and the caregiver stayed at the client’s house through the storm. And yes we billed for it. We billed it our daily at our daily live-in rate that we had and we paid the caregiver for it, but it was done in advance.
In other instances, clients had family or friends come in and they didn’t need it. But all of this was plans and preparations leading up to the event. So it’s not something that we just fell into. It’s something that we had a plan in place and we started preparing for it, as soon as we thought something was coming, based on what the weather was telling us. So have a plan, be able to work remotely, contact all your community, all your your clients and caregivers, and communicate with them, this plan, all before the disaster comes or the emergency hits so that then you can get through the emergency. And then last thing is in the event that the emergency does hit, in the event that you have to end up picking up caregivers or dropping caregivers off, please be safe. Please make sure you work it out ahead of time.
I know every person’s different. I know, Brian and I, there were a couple of times, we had a caregiver stranded somewhere and we braved the storm, if we could. One time we had a big blizzard and I wanna say it was like 30 inches of snow like two and a half feet of snow. And I remember the town that I lived in, I was driving to go to where my office was.
So I live in Manalapan Township, which is here, and then you go a little bit to the west, and that’s where Monroe Township is, which is where my office was. In my town, Manalapan, everything was plowed and cleaned up and clear. So I was driving to go pick up the caregiver. As soon as I got to Monroe, their roads weren’t even plowed yet. I literally drove to a wall, a 30-inch wall of snow on the road. and I was like, I can’t get to that caregiver, you know.
And I reached out to Brian and Brian was able to come at it from another angle. He got to the caregiver and helped out. And that’s really like emergency case by case situation. In some instances, you’re not able to help, but this is why you have to have a plan in place before the event, before the emergency takes place so that it reduces the likelihood of having that type of scenario happen to you.
So for what it’s worth, plan your work, work your plan, emergency policies and procedures are all the same. Have them, execute them, make sure everybody knows what to do. Maybe even do a drill before you actually have to implement it, just in case, so you’re not caught off guard.
So there’s our tip for the week folks. Again, I love you all. Thank you so much for watching. If you need help growin’ your business, you need help with caregiver recruitment retention. You need help with running your office staff, your organization. You wanna scale your home care business. Pick up the phone, give us a call and let us help you blow away the competition. Take care of my friends.