Before the Deluge-And After: CPAs Can Help Clients Prepare to Pick Up the Pieces When Mother Nature Hits Hard
At the eastern edge of North Dakota, the Red River flows north toward Canada, forming the state's border with Minnesota. The city of Grand Forks sits in the Red River Valley, north of Fargo and south of Winnepeg, on the North Dakota riverside just across from East Grand Forks. Between melting snow and persistent rains, the spring of 1997 was a wet one, and the river rose--and rose. When it finally crested at 54.4 feet, close to double the flood stage of 28 feet, water was flowing at 140,000 cubic feet per second, 178 times the normal rate. By Saturday, April 19, floodwaters covered large areas of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks and 90% of the population had been evacuated. The city went 23 days without drinkable water. Once flooded, downtown Grand Forks burned. In this article, three CPAs who've been on the front lines of devastation share lessons learned the hard way and tell firms how to prepare--and rebound--and help clients do the same. GOOD PEOPLE AND GOOD BACKUP Peter Hoisted, CPA and partner at Brady, Martz and Associates, CPAs--a 25-partner, 130-employee firm with headquarters in Grand Forks and three regional offices--has vivid memories of 1997's rout. "The water came up and the fire came down." While the floodwaters rose, "everyone was out sandbagging," Hoisted says. Nobody worried that the flood might reach the laptops in Brady, Martz's downtown third-floor suite, so 35 of 38 laptops were still in the office when it burned. The firm's IT and administration functions had been at that location, so its billing, collection and time-inventory records as well as other important management documents and systems "all melted." Then the firm's nearby off-site storage and bank burned, too. It would be a month before Hoisted worked downtown again. Nevertheless, his downtown team delivered a client's payroll on time within days after the waters crested. Although the employer's on-site records had been destroyed, its payroll information was on one of the firm's hard drives. Fortunately for the client's staff, Brady, Martz had a system whereby various employees took data backups home on a regular rotation. The person with the crucial backup had had the presence of mind to grab it and carry it to safety when the dike broke as the floodwaters crested, and National Guard trucks rolled down her residential street with soldiers shouting, "You have to get out now!" Retired partner Ron Lunde, CPA, says providing payroll services helped keep the firm going. In contrast to a tax or audit project, the payroll work was needed right away, which gave them no time to despair about how to go on, he says. The firm couldn't have rallied so quickly without a combination of a little luck, a lot of foresight and the outstanding effort and dedication of its staff, Hoisted says: "Our people saved our necks." Here are issues he found crucial to becoming operational again. (For more postdisaster tips, see "Business Recovery Procedures" page 62.) * Communication. Being able to reach staff while local power and telephone lines were down was paramount. The firm used public service announcements over area radio stations to give its people phone numbers to call for information. This also let the firm compile a new record of where to contact each employee. * Logistics. For overall business continuity, the firm had the advantage of its other offices, which made it possible to back up some files and provided places for some displaced staff to work as well. There wasn't room for everyone, however, and temporary office space in Grand Forks was at a premium after the disaster. Only 1,000 square feet was available to replace the 15,000 square feet of the destroyed headquarters, and just 25% of the normal head count could work there. "If you weren't one of the first 14 people to arrive, you didn't get space," Hoisted says. People would show up to download files or obtain what work materials they could. …