One of the questions I ask myself after almost every major property loss is surprisingly simple: how different would this situation have been if there had been a plan in place before the disaster happened?
Sometimes the answer is obvious within the first few minutes of arriving on site. I’ve walked into buildings where everyone understood their role. Emergency contacts had already been called, building documentation was easy to locate, and decisions were being made confidently because the groundwork had been done long before the emergency occurred. Those projects still faced significant challenges, but there was a sense of direction from the very beginning.
I’ve also walked into situations that looked very different. People were searching for utility shutoffs, trying to remember who had the authority to approve emergency work, and scrambling to find building plans or vendor information while water continued to spread or smoke damage persisted on the property. Nobody was doing anything wrong. They simply found themselves trying to solve tomorrow’s problems while today’s crisis was still unfolding.
After more than 24 years working in insurance, restoration, and property damage consulting, I have come to believe that one of the best investments a commercial property owner can make is creating a disaster recovery plan before it is ever needed. Not because it guarantees a better outcome, but because it gives people a framework for making good decisions when they are under the most pressure.
Most Disasters Begin Like Any Other Day
One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that very few people expect the day of a major loss to be any different from the day before.
A pipe doesn’t announce that it is about to burst. A fire doesn’t wait until everyone has finished preparing for it. Storms rarely arrive at convenient times. Most of the losses I’ve worked on started during what seemed like an ordinary day.
That is probably why disaster planning is so easy to postpone.
Property owners have budgets to manage, maintenance projects to complete, tenants to support, and countless other responsibilities competing for their attention. Spending time preparing for something that may never happen can feel difficult to justify.
I understand that way of thinking because I’ve had those conversations with clients many times. Unfortunately, I’ve also returned to some of those same properties after a major loss, and almost every time I hear a similar comment: “We talked about putting a plan together. We just never got around to it.”
Nobody says that because they were careless. They say it because life and business have a way of pushing long-term planning behind today’s priorities.
A Recovery Plan Is Really About Decision-Making
I think the phrase “disaster recovery plan” sometimes gives people the wrong impression.
It sounds like a document that gets filed away until something goes wrong. In reality, a good recovery plan is less about paperwork and more about helping people make clear decisions during stressful situations.
When I’ve been involved in large commercial losses, I’ve seen how quickly uncertainty can spread. Questions begin almost immediately. Who should be called first? Which contractor should respond? Where are the building drawings? Has everyone been notified? What equipment or records need immediate protection?
Those questions become much harder to answer when emotions are running high and everyone feels pressure to act quickly.
Planning ahead doesn’t eliminate those questions, but it often means the answers are already available instead of having to be figured out in the middle of the crisis.
The First Few Hours Shape Everything That Follows
If there is one lesson I’ve learned from years of working major property losses, it is that the first several hours often influence the entire project.
That doesn’t mean every decision has to be perfect. No one has complete information immediately after a disaster. What matters is having an organized approach that allows good decisions to build on one another.
I’ve seen situations where early documentation made the entire claims process smoother months later because everyone had a clear understanding of the original conditions. I’ve also seen projects become far more complicated because important information was missed during those first inspections.
The same is true for water damage. Moisture doesn’t stop spreading while people are deciding what to do next. Delays of only a few hours can sometimes change the scope of a restoration project significantly.
That is why preparation matters so much. It creates structure during the period when everything else feels uncertain.
Every Property Requires a Different Plan
One mistake I occasionally see is the assumption that every commercial property can follow the same recovery strategy.
In reality, every building presents different challenges.
A hospital has to think about patient care, infection control, and essential medical equipment. A manufacturing facility may be focused on protecting production lines and minimizing operational downtime. Schools, office buildings, courthouses, and warehouses all have their own priorities that influence how recovery should be approached.
The disaster itself is only part of the equation.
Understanding how the building functions on a normal day is equally important because that often determines which decisions become most critical after a loss.
I think that is something people sometimes overlook. Recovery is not simply about repairing damage. It is about helping organizations continue serving the people who depend on them.
Experience Has Changed the Way I Think About Preparation
Early in my career, I viewed restoration mostly through the lens of repairing buildings. That was the visible part of the work, and naturally it received most of my attention.
Over time, my perspective changed.
After working as a claims adjuster, moving into restoration, and eventually consulting on large commercial losses, I realized that successful projects are rarely defined only by the quality of the repairs. They are defined by how well people managed uncertainty throughout the process.
The organizations that seemed to recover most effectively were not always the ones with the smallest losses. More often, they were the ones that had already thought through difficult questions before they ever needed the answers.
That observation has stayed with me throughout my career.
Preparation Is an Investment in Stability
No disaster recovery plan can anticipate every situation. Buildings are different, disasters unfold differently, and unexpected challenges will always arise. Trying to create a perfect plan is probably impossible.
But perfection is not really the goal.
The goal is to reduce uncertainty enough that people can focus on solving problems instead of creating a process while the emergency is already underway.
Looking back on the many commercial losses I’ve been fortunate to help evaluate, I don’t think anyone has ever regretted spending time preparing for an event that never happened.
What I have seen, though, are plenty of people wishing they had prepared before the event that did.
For me, that is the strongest argument for every commercial property having a disaster recovery plan. It is not simply about protecting a building. It is about protecting the people, businesses, and communities that rely on that building every single day.