DRBToolkit Information

Pierce County

Emergency Management

A group of professionals from the public and private sectors collaborated to develop a software tool that would assist small to midsize businesses build disaster plans. For the past six years, the non-profit partnership called the Disaster Resistant Busienss (DRB) Toolkit* Workgroup, based upon their collective expertise worked on developing an application that meets the following objectives:

Improve the resiliency within the community to recover from disasters
Design an easy-to-use process for businesses with limited resources
Create a tool that is user friendly
Build a process to easily maintain and distribute future enhancements
Strengthen the partnership between the public and private sectors

It is called the DRB Toolkit* and it is an interactive, software application. The Application is easy to use and based upon a proven methodology. There is not another tool in the business disaster planning industry specifically designed to assist a small to mid-size business build a comprehensive disaster plan and business continuity program.

For the past several years, there has been an increase in the number and frequency of fabricated and natural disasters across the United States. Many of these disasters, such as the hurricanes in Florida, Texas and Louisiana; tornadoes and floods in the Midwestern states; brownouts in the eastern coast; wildfires in California; earthquakes in the northwest; and of course the World Trade Center catastrophe, received a significant amount of national media attention. Not only do these types of disasters affect the lives of employees', but they also affect the availability of goods and services provided by these businesses. Analyzing these events emphasized the need to reduce the impact these types of disasters have on people, businesses and the local, state and national economies. After a disaster, businesses must determine how quickly or if their business will ever be reinstated. Without having walked through a planning process, would they know how to re-start or how to recover?

Statistics indicate that many small to midsize businesses fail to deal with disaster planning. A recent study commissioned by Office Depot found that a large percentage of small businesses have no disaster preparedness plan. We found businesses have three primary reasons stopping them:

1) They don't know how or where to start
2) It is difficult to acquire good/simple materials
3) Cost and time were major impediments

The DRB Toolkit* was designed specifically to address these three reasons businesses have not planned for a disruption. The DRB Toolkit* limits terminology, uses an easy step-by-step approach, and provides best practice solutions, all of which make it easier for businesses to address these disaster-planning challenges. The application provides a comprehensive, yet simplified approach for a business to build a disaster plan. The modular design allows each busiens to develop their plan at their own pace. The investment in time will be well worth the effort when the plan is activated for any hazards.

*Registered Trademark