BOULDER, Colo.-In the wake of a natural disaster, when floodwaters recede or winds and rain subside, some credit unions find they have learned vital disaster-recovery and business-continuity lessons.
That was the case when historic floods swept through Boulder, Colo., earlier this month, making clear to at least two local CUs that they must find ways to quickly align human resources to meet member-service needs when a large number of roads are either wiped out or are inaccessible.
"Our biggest challenge was trying to get employees where we needed them," said Carlos Pacheco, CEO at $450 million Premier Members FCU, which has 11 offices in Colorado, several in the flooded areas. "If we face a similar disaster in the future, it won't be an issue."
Dennis Paul, AVP of business development and communications at Elevations CU, which has 11 offices in the Boulder area and surrounding counties, said at one time 70 of the city's intersections were closed. Paul said future business-continuity plans will address distributing staff to branches closer to where they reside.
The events in Boulder brought back some tough memories for Tammy Williams, AVP of information technology at the $2.1 billion Keesler FCU, Biloxi, Miss.,whose staff and members had to pick up the pieces following Hurricane Katrina.
Survival Mode
"When I see credit unions fighting through a natural disaster my heart goes out to them," said Williams. "When I watched the news reports on the Colorado flooding, seeing people totally cut off, I could relate to them. That is how we felt during the height of the Katrina flooding. You are in survival mode."
That 2005 storm, one of the deadliest in U.S. history killing more than 1,800 people, destroyed one Keesler branch and severely damaged several others.
Williams is among a number of credit union executives who share their stories of survival and recovery following a natural disaster in a new CUNA Technology Council video white paper, touching on what their credit unions learned about their disaster planning following the tragedies (http://cubroadcast.wistia.com/medias/1nqy4bzpqi).
When Katrina reached land, Williams said her CU quickly discovered that its disaster recovery plan at the time was ineffective.
"We gave up on it and basically threw in out the window," she said. "Our plan was set up mostly to address an event that affected our Biloxi [Miss.], headquarters-a storm, a fire or an incident that took our servers down. Never in a million years did we ever think a storm could bring the kind of destruction Katrina did and the widespread communication failure. The destruction reached so far, almost border to border inside our state and into Alabama and Louisiana."
Keesler's disaster recovery plan simply failed, said Williams, largely due to it not preparing the credit union to communicate when land lines and cell towers are out of commission for a long time.
Two Teams
Reacting to the lessons Katrina taught, Keesler created its "evacuation team" and "hunker-down team." Williams explained that the credit union quickly decided post-Katrina that it had to create a small mobile workforce.
The evacuation team was created from a handful of key employees across the credit union's operations. They have satellite phones, laptops and mobile hotspot devices to connect to the Internet.
"When we know a storm is coming, the team leaves the region. They can take their families, go to grandma's ... we get them out of the way of trouble," said Williams.
Williams said the team's goal is to keep communication lines open among key staff during and after a disaster, and to keep the CU functioning as best as it can. "We know it won't be business as usual."
The hunker-down team places key personnel at the credit union's headquarters, which Williams described as a very secure building outside the flood zone. "Their role is to stay at our main office during a storm and make sure the building remains secure, the generators come on and services remain up."
Tinker FCU And Two Twisters
In Oklahoma City, the disaster recovery lessons learned by Tinker FCU followed two EF5 tornadoes sweeping through the state last May. The first storm completely destroyed the CU's Moore, Okla., branch, leaving behind only the credit union's vault, inside which more than 20 people hunkered down and survived the onslaught.
The second tornado was on course to take out the credit union's headquarters in Oklahoma City but turned to the south a half-mile before reaching the office.
Grant Woldum, EVP/CIO said during the CUNA video that the Moore office manager followed procedures well, getting staff, members and passersbys into the vault before the tornado hit.
With the tornado's path of destruction more than a mile wide, a large number of the branch's members were affected. More than 400 members worked for the local school district, whose offices were heavily damaged, and the school system was unable to process its payroll.
Woldum said the CU understood how members desperately needed cash following the storm, so it reviewed the school system's last payroll file and deposited funds into members' accounts before receiving any money from the school system.
"Our members got their paychecks and we got our money 10 days later," Woldum said during the video. "It's one of the little things we now know we can do for our members, and they appreciated what we did."
The CU also didn't want to sit back and wait for members to stop by for help. It attempted to pinpoint those most affected by the storm and contact them.
Tinker ran a report to pull up the addresses of members in the branch's surrounding area, compared the list with information from the National Weather Service that mapped the storm's route, and determined 3,400 members were directly in the path of this storm.
"We reached out directly to these members to offer them assistance," Woldum explained. "We did whatever we could to provide some immediate stop-gap relief-food, shelter, or skip a payment."
Like most large-scale disasters, communication was a big issue following both tornados, said Woldum. While Tinker understood planning could not bring back cell phone, land line and Internet communication, it could help staff get a better understanding of what was taking shape outside the office as employees took cover inside tornado safe areas.
"Cell reception was spotty at best [in the safe areas]," said Woldum. "Now we have a communication kit in each [safe area] that includes a small hand-sized TV, a radio and batteries."
Staff Planning
Keesler's Williams pointed out one final, critical aspect of any disaster recovery/business continuity plan that's often overlooked.
"If you want to serve your members in times of tragedy and great difficulty, you have to focus on your own employees," she said. "If their lives are in complete disarray, they will not be able to serve members effectively. Remember, some of your staff may come to work owning only the clothes on their backs. You may have to feed them, care for their children, give them a place to stay. Don't let plans overlook your own people."
