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A special message from Mary Martha Fortney, President and CEO,
August 1, 2008
 The latest hurricane of the 2008 season, Hurricane Dolly, made landfall last week on the coast of Texas. While the hurricane season has just begun, credit unions have had a particularly difficult year with natural disasters. Credit unions in the Midwest are recovering from floods and tornados and severe weather has been an unfortunate mainstay of the 2008 summer. Also, just this week, the Los Angeles area experienced a moderate earthquake.
The good news is that we’ve heard success stories about credit unions’ disaster recovery and business resumption plans in recent incidents. Due to the June flooding in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a state-chartered credit union had to evacuate their main office. Its disaster recovery plan worked, and personnel moved into another credit union and they were only non-operational for one day. This is a success story, for sure, and there are probably many others with similar positive news about the effectiveness of credit union business resumption plans.
State and federal regulators placed an even greater emphasis on financial institutions’ disaster recovery and business resumption plans following the 2001 terrorist attacks and the hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005. The financial services industry learned valuable lessons from those situations. We need to continue improving our disaster recovery plans and learn from each situation as well as plan for an influenza pandemic outbreak and cyber-related intrusions.
NASCUS and state regulators are encouraging credit union executives to continue to take disaster and pandemic influenza preparedness seriously. Examiners are checking credit unions’ disaster recovery and business resumption plans to ensure they are ready for any type of disaster situation, small or large.
Regulators have noticed progress in these plans, but improving and testing your disaster recovery and business resumption plans should remain a priority. Recognizing the unpredictability of disasters, preparedness should be top of mind for credit union executives and industry leadership. It is valuable to share what has worked and what doesn’t with your credit union colleagues. Understanding the “lessons learned” can prove critical in responding to the next disaster.
Let’s hope for a quiet hurricane season and a slowdown in severe weather but let’s also remain prepared for what we can’t predict.
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