SWAN-Elgin

National study: Two-thirds of businesses ill-prepared

ELGIN — Grocery stores are empty. Banks are closed. Power companies, unable to supply electricity. Their workers all are out, felled by a pandemic virus.

There’s no way to get food, power or access to your money. And there’s no one to answer your emergency calls, should you become sick yourself.

That’s the idea in the classic 1964 horror film “The Last Man on Earth,” starring Vincent Price. But could it be possible in this area, with flu season fast approaching and the H1N1 flu, or “swine flu,” expected to make a resurgence?

A Harvard School of Public Health survey recently found businesses are ill-prepared for a possible widespread outbreak of the flu.

Two-thirds of the more than 1,000 businesses questioned nationwide said they could not maintain normal operations if half their workers were out for two weeks, according to the survey. Four out of every five businesses reported they’d expect severe problems if half their workers were out for a month.

That includes businesses designated by the Department of Homeland Security as “critical” to the security and economic vitality of the nation, including those in the food supply chain, energy and finance.

Carol Gieske, vice president of communications and special events for the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber hasn’t organized a preparedness plan for its member businesses yet.

“We don’t have a special program at this time, but if we have a need in the community, we would be willing to,” Gieske said.

Right now, she said, the chamber is taking direction from the Kane County Health Department and distributing information about H1N1 from the health department and flu.gov, which has posted guidance on planning for businesses. And, Gieske said, she knows many of its members have emergency preparedness plans in place, including plans for the possibility of pandemic flu.

One of those businesses is First Community Bank, with two locations in Elgin.

“In a scenario if half the staff is gone, you have to assume half your customers are, too,” said Joyce Lueth, senior vice president and cashier at First Community. “We’d just work with the staff we had and work with the customers who are up and out and not sick themselves.”

The bank has stocked surgical masks, latex gloves and hand sanitizer; held trainings for its employees; and passed out information they can put to use at home with their families. It always has offered to reimburse employees who get flu vaccinations, and this fall, it will host vaccination clinics at its locations for the first time, according to Lueth.

First Community’s pandemic flu policy is just part of its business continuity plan, something urged for financial institutions by their regulators, she said. Those regulating agencies include the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

“I think that people expect a way to get their funds, and banks are important to the clearing of monetary transactions in order to continue with the least amount of interruption,” Lueth said.

Emergency services are equally prepared for a possible pandemic flu in the Elgin area.

JoAnn Foley, the chief emergency preparedness officer at Sherman Hospital in Elgin, spent Thursday and Friday at an Illinois Department of Public Health meeting about pandemic flu preparedness in O’Fallon. But Foley said hospitals have been planning for the flu since at least 2006.

“It’s a major concern, because it’s a very highly skilled profession,” Foley said. “It’s hard to replace a highly skilled professional. You can’t just pull someone off the street.”

The hospital’s plan includes extending shifts, working flex time or shuffling hospital staff into other roles they are trained to fill. Sherman also has mutual aid agreements with other hospitals in the area and can share staff if a flu outbreak were to hit just one area, she said.

Seasonal and H1N1 flu vaccinations have not be mandated for hospital staff, Foley said, although she said other health care providers have, such as Loyola in Chicago.

And she said she also is working with other hospitals, long-term care facilities, schools, emergency medical services and police and fire departments across the area to develop their own pandemic flu preparedness plans.

“A lot of what we are doing with the flu plan is part of a network with Sherman Hospital and Kane County Public Health,” Battalion Chief Greg Benson of the Elgin Fire Department said.

“The police department and fire department work together to develop plans. … Nothing we’re doing is on our own. It’s all part of a bigger plan.”

That plan includes working longer shifts and filling in other roles. For instance, captains always can fill in for battalion chiefs, Benson said — that’s just part of normal operations at the fire department.

And he’s not worried if a virus took out workers for two weeks, or even a month. The battalion chief called the sustainability of the fire and police departments’ plans “solid.”

“The plans are in place,” Sherman’s Foley said. “We hope we don’t have to deal with shortages, but we’ll continue to care for our patients as best as possible.”

The Harvard School of Public Health survey, conducted by telephone between July 16 and Aug. 12, included interviews with human resources officers at 1,057 randomly selected businesses across the U.S. It included samples of small businesses with 20 to 99 employees; medium companies with 100 to 500 employees; and large businesses with more than 500 workers. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

© Copyright 2009 Digital Chicago, Inc.