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A
special message
from
Mary Martha Fortney, President and CEO,
November 5, 2007
Preliminary results of a nationwide flu pandemic exercise were released recently by the U.S. Treasury showing that most participants found gaps in their preparedness plans.
NASCUS and state regulators continue to encourage credit union executives 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 including pandemic influenza.
Many credit unions and regulators participated in the pandemic exercise, which began in September and lasted three weeks. The more than 2,700 organizations involved in the online exercise evaluated many issues related to their preparedness plans including human resources, continuity of operations and dependencies on other sectors such as transportation, energy and telecommunications.
While the data is still being analyzed, preliminary results of the exercise showed that 36.1 percent of participating organizations didn’t have a business continuity plan for a pandemic and that 58 percent of the human resources pandemic plans weren’t designed to meet the needs of their workforces during a pandemic. Further, 56.2 percent of organizations found their plans moderately effective for a pandemic outbreak and 28 percent ranked their plans as minimally effective. The results state that almost 97 percent of participants were able to identify critical gaps in their plans that warrant additional information.
Although regulators have noticed progress in credit union continuity plans, more work needs to be done. Recognizing the unpredictability of disasters, preparedness should continue to be a top priority for credit union executives and industry leadership. NASCUS, as a member of the U.S. Treasury’s Financial and Banking Information Infrastructure Committee, is active in financial services sector disaster preparedness planning and will continue to participate in pandemic flu planning.
I encourage you to visit www.pandemicflu.gov to read more about the recent pandemic exercise and take a closer look at the preliminary results of the exercise. Speculation abounds about the probability of a pandemic influenza outbreak. Health care officials have said it’s not a matter of “if” but “when,” making it critically important to be prepared.
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