I was amused to see that certain parts of England are looking like they will have to apply for drought orders as their reservoirs are half full. I was amused, as coming from Glasgow it has never seems to stop raining! Every time I come back by plane or train from England I am greeted by a wet and stormy weather.

In our business continuity plans we recognise power as being a critical to the continuing of our operations and we invest our money in standby generators. Do we spend the same time and effort thinking about loss of water? Even if we don’t use water in our processes, water failure can results in having no water in our toilets, wash hand basins, canteens and no cooling for data centres and office’s air conditioning systems.

Have you thought about what the impact on your organisation will the loss of water have? If you have a header tank then you may be able to survive for some time without water but if your water supply is directly off the mains you will lose water immediately. In terms of mitigating this risk there are various things you can do which vary from bringing in portable toilets and putting them in your car park, to reconfiguring your water system to allow there to be storage on site or for an emergency water provider to tanker you in a supply. If you are a high user of water either for cooling or you use it as part of your process it may be worth talking to your water company and find out from them their plans if drought orders are invoked, and will they be reducing supply to certain industries or users.

If you are looking for an emergency water supplier or someone to advise you on emergency water supply you may want to speak to Water Direct who can supply this service. www.water-direct.co.uk