The Polaris Approach to Hurricane Risks

Recent hurricane seasons have shattered activity records, with some years even doubling standard named storm and hurricane rates. We’ve faced a string of unusually active and unexpectedly devastating years, resulting in more pessimistic, destructive expectations for future Hurricane Seasons. in anticipation of severe storm activity. Moreover, the season itself is expanding, with more storms forming before and after the official season. 

Though this trend is likely to continue – with storm seasons growing more crowded and intense as years go on – your company is not defenseless against the threat; while hurricanes, monsoons, floods, and other disastrous weather events may at first seem outside of your control, you can leverage Polaris’ suite of storm defense services – which includes detailed storm tracking, emergency action planning, employee training, physical protective services, and more – to enhance your company’s storm preparedness, response, and recovery. 

Plan for Coming Storms

Emergency Action Planning

Storms are destabilizing by nature, complicating and confusing key aspects of your operations, from employee safety to supply chain concerns. To streamline your response, Polaris can collaborate with your teams to compose or revise your emergency response plans, walking you through the worst-case scenarios that your company might face – and help you plan a way out of them. Polaris builds its emergency action plans from the ground up, liaising with expert consultants to determine what protocols best meet the needs of your specific industry, location, and staff. These plans may be informed by site inspections, reviews of prior incidents, and your operations and infrastructure.

Employee Trainings

Hurricanes and major storms can disrupt your company’s communications, leaving employees and team members to navigate incidents for themselves. To ensure that your team is equipped to carry out your emergency plans and protocols – streamlining your recovery, and helping to ensure that your operations proceed as smoothly as they can during crisis – they’ll need targeted trainings on the threats that they may face. Polaris’ can provide key crisis trainings and tests on what to do before, during, and after a hurricane, all catered to your location, industry, size, and operations. These measures help your team to act with confidence – even during the tumult of a hurricane. 

Respond to Ongoing Storms

Emergency Response Services

While there are many steps that your company can take to mitigate its risks, it is impossible to stop a storm; when a hurricane touches ground, you should be ready and equipped to face threats both anticipated and unexpected. Thankfully, Polaris’ expansive network of local assets and experts means that support is never far from your location: when threats escalate to crisis, and your team needs advice, assistance, or extraction, Polaris can dispatch a team of agents from one of its nationwide outposts. This emergency security team will be dedicated to the safety of your team – prioritizing your safety in a way that police and emergency personnel cannot. 

Live Intelligence & Monitoring

The situation on the ground can change quickly, as the storm’s projected path, intensity, and duration can shift at a moment’s notice. Media reports – as noted in the US House of Representatives’ final report on the response to Hurricane Katrina – can often confuse the matter, stoking “anxiety and fear” through “erroneous or exaggerated reporting.” As such, it is vital that your team is supplied with vetted, relevant, and to-the-minute intelligence on both the hurricane and its impact on key infrastructure. Polaris can provide intel at an interval of your choosing, collated by a team of expert analysts – all trained to cut through the noise of countless sources with outside agendas. 

Recover from Prior Storms

Critical Security Posture

Criminals see opportunity in the aftermath of a storm, and in the abandoned offices, storefronts, and homes that follow evacuations; in fact, academic studies have found that hurricanes can result in a 35% increase in crime, largely driven by rising rates of aggravated assaults, break-ins, and shootings. Bad actors look to strike while the police are preoccupied with public safety, and while your company is focused on its revival – and blind to unforeseen risks. Polaris helps to balance these needs, with a disaster-trained protection team taking security anxieties off your plate – allowing you to focus more fully on your operational needs. 

Post-Storm Assessment

Any crisis – while tragic – offers a chance to revise and refine your protective strategy from the ground up. In collaboration with Polaris’ experts and consultants, your company can leverage that storm-tested experience as you draft or amend emergency action plans, train your employees in critical response measures, stock key supplies, including non-perishable food and water, and assess your physical security and live intelligence needs before the next storm season. If your company was particularly impacted by a hurricane, Polaris experts can also help you assess the damage, helping you to design and rebuild a more secure, storm-ready infrastructure. 

Read the PDF: 15.-The-Polaris-Approach-to-Hurricane-Risks-1.pdf