The recent storms across the Essex and Middle River, MD area left many food businesses without power for hours—and, in some cases, much longer. As expected, social media quickly filled with frustration over delayed utility restoration, lost product, and uncertainty about what could or couldn’t be saved.
While it’s easy to focus on what went wrong, these situations highlight a much bigger issue: every food establishment should have a plan for responding to an imminent health hazard before it happens.
Power outages, water disruptions, fires, floods, sewage backups, and other emergencies aren’t just operational problems—they’re food safety events. The businesses that recover the quickest are usually the ones that planned ahead.
Here are five areas every food establishment should think through before an emergency occurs.
1. Know When to Stop Operating
One of the hardest decisions for an owner is closing the facility during normal operating hours.
If you lose electricity, safe water, refrigeration, or another critical service, continuing to operate may no longer be safe. An imminent health hazard means normal operations cannot continue without putting public health at risk.
Your plan should identify:
- Who will call the health department when a disruption in services occurs so they can determine whether all or part of the facility should close.
- This decision should NOT be left to the manager on duty or even the owner.
Closing temporarily is often far less expensive than dealing with a foodborne illness investigation.
2. Have a Plan to Protect Your Food
This is where many businesses lose thousands of dollars—not because the disaster occurred, but because they waited too long to act.
Don’t wait until the walk-in starts warming up.
Your plan should allow you to quickly solve the problem:
- For each type of emergency, identify who will be contacted for repairs or to provide temporary services.
- Establish relationships before an emergency with companies that can provide services such as potable water, refrigerated trucks, dry ice, generators, and emergency cleanup.
- If continuous temperature monitoring with data loggers is not available, have Time Temperature Indicators (TTIs) available. Before a predicted storm, place them in strategic locations within refrigeration units to help estimate how long food has been exposed to the Temperature Danger Zone (TDZ).
3. Keep the Right Supplies on Hand
An emergency is not the time to start shopping.
Consider keeping supplies such as:
- Time Temperature Indicators (TTIs).
- Check emergency lighting on a regular basis.
- A cleanup kit for sewage backups.
A small investment in preparedness can prevent a much larger loss later.
4. Know What Can Be Saved—and What Can’t
One of the biggest mistakes during an emergency is throwing everything away—or trying to save everything.
Neither is a good strategy.
Food decisions should be based on:
- Refrigerated TCS food that has been in the TDZ for more than 4 hours, or when the time cannot be verified, must be discarded.
- Frozen food, such as meat, that has thawed can be saved if the product did not exceed 41°F for more than 4 hours. If the time or temperature cannot be verified, it should be discarded.
- Vacuum-packaged fish that has thawed while still in the package should be discarded.
- When there is a sewage backup, fire, flood, or other source of contamination, exposed food should be discarded.
The health department can provide guidance if you are unsure.
5. Train Your Staff Before the Emergency
A crisis plan sitting in a binder doesn’t help if no one knows what’s in it.
Employees should know:
- Who to notify.
- How to safely and effectively remove customers.
- Which equipment should be turned off and where the breaker box is located.
- Who makes the decision about what food must be discarded.
- Where emergency supplies are located.
When everyone knows their role, the response is faster, more organized, and far less stressful.
The Bottom Line
No one can prevent severe storms, power outages, or other emergencies. But every food business can prepare for them.
The goal isn’t simply to reopen as quickly as possible—it’s to reopen safely.
A well-designed crisis plan protects your customers, your employees, your reputation, and often thousands of dollars in inventory.
Because when an imminent health hazard occurs, the decisions the person in charge makes can determine how quickly—and how successfully—you recover.