Oklahoma's tornado corridor doesn't forgive unpreparedness, and Coweta sits right in the middle of it. Wagoner County is one of the fastest-growing in the state — more businesses opening, more employees working, more at stake when severe weather or a sudden crisis hits. The sobering reality: one in four businesses never reopens after a disaster, which means a plan you build today is directly tied to whether your business survives tomorrow.
Here's what a solid emergency plan looks like — and how to build one before you need it.
Know Which Risks Are Real for Your Business
Not every business faces the same hazards. Start by listing the specific threats your location and industry actually face. For businesses in Coweta, the list is concrete: tornadoes, severe wind, inland flooding, and extended power outages top it. Tornadoes can race across Oklahoma at over 50 mph, making advance shelter planning and a battery-operated NOAA Weather Radio essential tools for any business in the state.
Don't stop at weather. Consider fire, utility failures, break-ins, and data breaches. A retail shop on Main Street faces different exposure than a home-based contractor. List your top three to five hazards, then rank them by likelihood and potential impact — that ranking shapes every decision that follows.
Write the Plan (Actually Write It Down)
An Emergency Action Plan (EAP) is a written document that spells out how your business responds to each hazard on your list — including who does what, where people go, and how decisions get made. Some businesses are legally required to maintain an EAP under 29 CFR 1910.38, covering designated employee duties, shelter assignments, and regularly practiced shelter-in-place drills. Even if your headcount puts you below the federal threshold, the EAP framework is worth adopting.
Cover these basics at minimum:
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Evacuation routes and primary shelter areas (an interior room or storm shelter for tornado events)
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Who is authorized to make calls when you're not on-site
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How employees will be alerted and how customers will be notified of closures
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Steps for securing equipment, cash, and critical inventory before a known event
FEMA's Ready Business Toolkit includes hazard-specific preparedness guides for severe wind, inland flooding, and power outage — free resources built for exactly the risks Oklahoma small businesses face.
Protect Your Records Before You Need Them
Financial records are the one thing you can't recreate from memory. The IRS states that emergency preparedness plans should include copies of vital records and financial information, and that pre-disaster photo or video documentation of your assets makes it easier to claim insurance and tax benefits after a loss.
For most small businesses, this means two practical steps:
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Back up accounting files, contracts, and employee records to a secure cloud service or encrypted offsite drive
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Do a video walkthrough of your space — equipment, inventory, fixtures — and store that file somewhere off-premises
Many businesses also keep physical copies of their emergency materials posted on-site: evacuation diagrams, shelter maps, and emergency contact sheets. PDFs are the most portable and consistent format for these documents — they hold their layout across devices, print reliably, and can be password-protected for sensitive files. If your materials started as images or scanned PNG files, you may find this useful: Adobe Acrobat's free online tool lets you drag and drop PNG image files directly into a browser window and convert them to PDFs instantly, without installing any software.
Set Up an Emergency Communication System
Emergencies are confusing, and confusion wastes time. Set up a simple communication chain before you need it: a sequence for reaching employees, then customers, then key vendors.
For employees, pick one primary method — a group text or a messaging app — and designate an out-of-state contact who can relay updates if local networks go down. Post the contact list physically somewhere in your workspace, not just on a shared drive that may be inaccessible.
For customers, know in advance how you'll announce closures: a website update, a Google Business Profile post, a voicemail greeting change. Draft those templates now. Having them ready means you can communicate in minutes rather than hours when it matters most.
Train Your Team — Every Year
A plan no one has practiced is just paper. Schedule at least one drill annually. For Coweta businesses, tornado shelter-in-place is the obvious starting point given Oklahoma's weather profile. Walk new employees through the EAP as part of onboarding rather than waiting for the next scheduled training.
Training doesn't need to be elaborate. A 15-minute walkthrough of the shelter area, a review of who handles which responsibilities, and a test of your emergency communication channel is enough for most small businesses to get aligned and ready.
Keep Emergency Supplies Accessible
Basic supplies belong somewhere you can reach quickly — not locked in storage two blocks away:
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First aid kit with instructions
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Flashlights and extra batteries (or a hand-crank model)
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Portable battery pack for charging phones
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At least one day's water supply
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Any tools needed to shut off gas or water utilities
If your business depends on a generator, test it before severe weather season starts, not during it.
Review and Update the Plan Annually
Your business changes — staff turns over, you take on new equipment, operations expand. Your emergency plan needs to keep up. Review your EAP at least once a year and revise it whenever you make significant changes to how the business runs.
The financial exposure from skipping this is real. According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, only 33% of small businesses carry business interruption insurance, leaving most businesses financially exposed when a disaster forces a temporary shutdown. An annual plan review is also a natural time to ask whether your coverage still reflects your current operations — and close any gaps before they cost you.
Preparedness Is a Community Effort in Coweta
Emergency planning is one of those tasks that feels unnecessary until it isn't. For businesses in a close-knit community like Coweta — where a neighbor's closure is felt by customers and fellow business owners alike — the stakes are personal as well as financial.
The Coweta Chamber of Commerce is a practical starting point: Chamber workshops and networking luncheons connect local business owners who are navigating the same Oklahoma weather risks and growth pressures. Reach out to the Chamber, download FEMA's free hazard toolkits, and get your first EAP on paper. Tornado season doesn't announce itself.
This Hot Deal is promoted by Coweta Chamber of Commerce.
