As the Daily Telegraph noted last August (4th August 2008) restaurants, cinemas and theatres got police warnings to prepare for terrorist bombings.

The recent bungling on anti-terrorism and subsequent raids and detention of a number of suspects has not made the police’s work any easier.

Owners and managers of hospitality and entertainment firms will be told to assess their businesses’ likely vulnerabilities to attack and prepare contingency plans for staff in the event of an attack.

Simulated terrorist attach exercises are one way the police are using to try and prevent mass panic by staff at locations that might get hit..

The The National Counter Terrorism Security Office (NCTSO) says on it’s web site that “Attacks around the world have shown that terrorists will attack those targets they perceive as being attractive.”

The problem remains that if your business is destroyed how do you get back into business. In fact more than that how do you proceed when a bomb as gone off. Do you know?

To ask simply ring us here on 0161 339 9700 and we’ll layout the way to improve your response and your likelihood of maintaining your business or at the very least reducing the casualties you could suffer amongst your staff and customers.

Free Disaster Prevention Tips

Fire, flood, storm or terrorist attack – you can rarely predict whether you’ll be affected by them.

CashFlow Disaster

However, think of how devastating it would be if you were unable to collect money owed to your company because your invoices were all destroyed. How many companies could you chase for payment if you had no proof? What would that do to your cashflow and you ability to make payroll and pay your own suppliers, who still have their paperwork?

Telecoms Connection Disaster

What about the 6 weeks delay in connecting phones at different or temporary premises?  Obviously you can use mobiles and then what about their costs, and the loss of prospects who are phoning the number they have for you and get the unobtainable tone.

What about your connection to the Internet for everything we rely on: getting new supplies of paper, ink and other consumables, chatting to prospects and clients through email and Chat tools?

Insurance Won’t Payout

It’s great you’ve got insurance, without the right insurance you’ll have your claim knocked back. If you can’t estimate precisely, with some proof, your level of stock, your fixed assets (like your computers) or your furniture you’ll only get part of your claim. And by the way don’t expect your claim to be settled within a few days if there’s any question with it. A lot of disaster claims can take months to get through.

You Can Go Out Of Business

You can usually predict that many businesses will go to the wall. Think of the small businesses in Royal Exchange in Manchester after the IRA bomb there. How many are still trading? What about the businesses that were trading in Hemel Hempstead when the Buncefield Oil depot exploded into a huge fire. How many do you think managed to survive that?

Could your business cope with being excluded from your building? Because when there’s a major disaster travel into the disaster area, even to unaffected buildings can be limited for weeks.

So what can you do so you can avoid these sorts of nightmares? Check out "Prepare For Disaster", in the next section.

Prepare For Disaster

There are many things that can really help your company pull back from the brink of disaster, even if a natural disaster has devastated your premises. For example do you know which route the emergency services will use to get to your area? Trying to use that route to escape from a  disaster is a recipe for going nowhere fast.

Email Bombox at 47tips AT Bomboxuk dot co.uk today to get your FREE copy of 47 tips to reduce any disaster’s impact on you and your business.

Don’t delay because another day could mean you’re one step closer to a disaster.

The current threat level for terrorist incidents is Severe (as at 4th July 2007).

That is the informed opinion as reported by MI5 on their intelligence web pages

The Threat Levels

These levels give an indication of the likelihood of a terrorist attack.

The estimation is based on factors such as recent events, terrorist intentions and known abilities and current intelligence from a variety of sources.

As always such intelligence is usually incomplete, otherwise we could simply walk in and arrest the terrorists just before an incident happens!

And there are 5 levels of threat. These are:

• Critical – an attack is expected imminently
• Severe – an attack is highly likely
• Substantial – an attack is a strong possibility
• Moderate – an attack is possible, but not likely
• Low – an attack is unlikely

And of course certain areas are at higher risk than others. Areas at higher risk include:

• Major train stations such as London, Manchester, Birmingham
• Airports such as Gatwick, Heathrow, Manchester
• Cities London, Manchester, Birmingham

Think about this for a moment. You may not be affected by a bomb, or even an "incident." What happens if the security forces have to seal off the area where your business is for a day, 2 days or more? Would you be able to continue trading with little or no impact?

Moyra Franklin, CEO, of Bombox the Disaster Recovery specialists is known as The Disaster Magnet because she’s been involved with a number of major incidents. Though to be fair she and the major law firm she was practice manager for emerged unscathed from Manchester’s terrorist bomb in 1996.

And the reason the firm could resume trading almost immediately was because of the disaster preparedness that Moyra put into the firm’s staff.

And it was all down to her carefully working out step by step the risks the company faced from all sorts of disaster, including bombs that made disaster recovery so immediate.

And the result was that Moyra came up with the "Box and Bag" concept. That is your Bombox box to hold important items and documents required to continue operations and a Grab Bag to "grab" as you are evacuated from the office. One member of staff is designated to take the bag and its contents are there to help you safely through the next hour.