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Small business emergency planning means documenting — before a disruption hits — exactly how your business will respond, communicate, and recover. For businesses in West Hawaiʻi, where the visitor economy drives revenue and a volcanic event, hurricane, or extended power outage can halt operations without warning, that planning isn't a nice-to-have. FEMA data shows that 90% of businesses fail within a year if they can't reopen within five days of a disaster, making speed of recovery existential for small business owners. The steps below give you a framework to work through now, while things are calm.

Know What Risks You're Actually Facing

No two businesses face identical threats. A boutique hotel near the harbor, a coffee farm on the slopes of Mauna Loa, and a professional services firm on Palani Road each carry different exposures — though all share West Hawaiʻi's common hazards: vog, flooding, tsunamis, hurricanes, and the supply chain vulnerabilities that come with island geography.

Start by listing the threats most relevant to your location and operations. Then factor in digital risk. Small businesses suffer 43% of all data breaches, yet 57% of small business owners believe they're unlikely to be targeted — a gap that leaves real vulnerabilities exposed. Cyberattacks are disasters too, and they deserve a place in your plan.

Write a Plan That's Specific, Prioritized, and Practiced

A plan that sits in a drawer accomplishes nothing. An effective emergency response plan must be tailored to your specific operations, organized by priority level, and you should review and practice it with staff before disaster strikes.

Your plan should answer four core questions:

• Where do employees evacuate, and by which route?

• Who is responsible for what decisions during a crisis?

• How will you reach staff, customers, and vendors when normal channels are down?

• Which operations need to come back online first?

If you're not sure where to begin, FEMA's free business continuity framework walks through risk identification, team assignments, and recovery strategies at no cost — a practical starting point for any small business owner.

Set Up Communications That Don't Depend on the Internet

Cell towers overload. Power goes out. Your emergency communication plan needs redundancy built in from the start. Designate an out-of-state contact that employees can reach when local lines are overwhelmed, and maintain a printed contact list — not just a phone contact — with numbers for your staff, key vendors, landlord, and insurance carrier. Post it somewhere visible in your workspace so anyone can find it, not just the person who wrote it.

Protect the Data Your Business Can't Afford to Lose

Business continuity — your ability to keep operating through or after a disruption — depends heavily on whether your critical information survived intact. Back up financial records, customer data, contracts, and operating procedures to cloud storage or a secure offsite location. Test restores periodically; a backup you've never restored is one you don't actually have. The SBA is direct on this: taking steps to protect critical business functions in writing is among the most important actions a small business owner can take to minimize financial loss during a disaster.

Train Your Team — and Keep That Training Current

Your plan only works if your people know it. Run drills. Walk new hires through evacuation routes and their specific emergency roles. Review procedures at least once a year and whenever your team or operations change significantly.

Clear visual materials improve retention considerably. A well-organized PowerPoint deck covering your emergency procedures is easier for employees to absorb than a dense text document. If your existing plan lives as a PDF, you can check this out to convert it into an editable PowerPoint format quickly and without specialized software. Adobe Acrobat's online converter is a free browser-based tool that transforms PDFs into editable PPTX files while preserving the original formatting.

Keep Basic Emergency Supplies on Premises

Stock these at your place of business — and check expiration dates annually:

• First aid kit

• Flashlights and spare batteries

• At least 72 hours of drinking water and non-perishable food

• Battery-powered or hand-crank radio for emergency broadcasts

• Printed evacuation maps and emergency contact lists

Businesses in coastal locations should confirm that staff know the nearest tsunami evacuation route. Don't assume — verify.

Review Your Insurance Coverage, Then Revisit Your Plan

This is the step most business owners skip until they file a claim and discover the gap. Standard commercial property policies typically exclude flood damage, and business interruption insurance — which replaces lost income while you're closed — only pays out when the underlying loss is from a covered peril. A volcanic event or flood that forces you to shut down may leave your current policy silent on income replacement.

In practice: The five core preparedness actions outlined by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation include creating a disaster plan, identifying operational priorities, training employees, reviewing insurance coverage, and maintaining an up-to-date contact list for employees, vendors, and key stakeholders. Insurance review belongs on that list for a reason — call your agent and ask directly what your policy excludes.

Finally, set a standing annual reminder to review your entire plan. Staff turns over. Vendors change. New equipment gets added. A plan that matched your operations last year may have real gaps today.

Preparedness Is Part of Doing Business Here

The natural setting that draws visitors and residents to West Hawaiʻi is the same environment that makes emergency preparedness non-negotiable for business owners. The Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce connects members with networks and resources that can support your business before and after a disruption. If you haven't built or updated your emergency plan recently, the steps above give you a concrete place to start — the best plan is the one you finish before you need it.