When tornados hit long-term care facilities across Alabama in April, Turenne PharMedCo wanted to help. Hurricane Katrina taught us that for disaster relief it is the basic needs — generators for electricity and gas for cars — that really make a difference.

PharMedCo first developed a disaster response plan after Hurricane Katrina, when the company loaded trucks for the Red Cross to send to Mississippi. As a result, we now have a disaster response and recovery plan for logistics. For the April tornadoes, implementing the plan involved 1,000 hours of donated relief work for seven consecutive days, donating 4,000 gallons of gas and $20,000 in medical and logistical materials as well as loaning eight generators with electricity distribution equipment to 15 facilities located across the state of Alabama.

My advice for LTC companies is to spend the time to prepare before you're in crisis mode for disaster relief, even though it can be a struggle to make time for planning. After Katrina, we set aside time for disaster response planning and it made the difference in our tornado relief response this year. We were quicker and more coordinated in meeting needs of our customers and others affected by the destruction the tornados created.

Another lesson we learned is that it is useful to be located near but outside of the affected area to be able to help more effectively because, for example, gas stations within about a 70 mile radius of Huntsville were closed following the tornados' destruction. We were able to truck supplies of gas and other basic needs from nearby Montgomery north to Huntsville, Alabama.

When mapping out your disaster relief and response plan, regardless of the type of disaster — hurricane, tornado, flood, fire, earthquake, etc. — your facility may greatly benefit from coordinating with your distributors in developing your recovery plan. Our company is one example of an LTC pharmacy and medical supply distributor that has a disaster relief plan to aid long-term care facilities following disaster.

Craig Miller is the Vice President of Operations for Turenne PharMedCo