Business Continuity Plan

Policy
The University will develop, implement and maintain an institutional Business Continuity Plan to help ensure the continuity of university operations. The intent of the plan is to establish operational concepts and identify tasks and responsibilities required to carry out emergency management and recovery. It describes the university’s emergency management organization. It indicates who is expected to do what, when and where to the extent possible. It defines the specific duties and responsibilities of departments and key positions and provides for response and recovery actions. The plan is intended to provide for flexibility of methods, operations, and actions needed to facilitate a return to normal operations. The plan will incorporate guidelines, best practices and recommendations of the Governor's office, State Office of Risk Management, the UH System, and the university community.

Scope
The plan is intended to address events that can be classified as emergencies. These include

1. Natural disasters, including fire, hurricane, flooding, severe weather, and pandemics
2. Technological incidents, including physical plant, electronic data processing and telecommunications disruptions
3. Geographic/Proximity incidents including BioLab hazardous material incidents, petrochemical plant explosions, truck or rail chemical spills and radioactive releases from nuclear power plants in Bay City and Houston
4. Human incidents, including rioting, terrorist threats and political incidents, as well as accidental events caused by human error

Plan Objectives
The plan objectives, in order of priority are to:

1. Protect life, providing for employee, student and public safety and welfare
2. Minimize confusion and indecision through advance planning and preparation
3. Minimize damage and loss of University property and resources
4. Resumption of normal business operations in an expeditious manner

Definitions
Emergency Event — Any unplanned event of magnitude that causes or has the potential to cause death or injury to students, faculty, and staff, extensive physical or environmental damage or other harm that disrupts normal operations and prevents the University from carrying out its mission.

Emergency Management — The dynamic process of mitigating, preparing for, responding to and recovering from an emergency within a defined time frame to minimize the effects of the emergency and amount of loss to the University.

Normalcy — The resumption of full operational activities within a targeted timeline.

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