Hurricane for General Business

Hurricane Tabletop Exercise for General Business

This exercise is part of our catalog of tabletop exercises for general business.

Scenario Overview

Participants are the management team of a fictional cargo company as a hurricane approaches the area. Preparations are underway to secure facilities, protect assets, and get employees home safely before conditions deteriorate. At first, the organization believes it is taking the right precautions.

Unfortunately, the storm is much larger and more damaging than expected. As the hurricane passes through, the facility is forced to close, employees cannot get to work, and customer cargo is damaged. Management must begin addressing the operational, financial, and reputational consequences while the wider community is still dealing with the storm’s impact.

This exercise challenges business leaders to evaluate how they would respond before, during, and after a severe weather event that disrupts operations, affects employees, and damages customer property.

Why This Scenario Matters for General Business

Businesses across many sectors depend on facilities, employees, transportation access, and customer confidence to maintain operations. A hurricane can affect all of these at once, creating immediate safety concerns, extended closures, damaged assets, and difficult communications with customers and stakeholders.

This exercise helps leadership teams evaluate how they would prepare for a major storm, manage operational disruption after landfall, and support employees and customers while recovery is still underway.

Exercise Objectives

  • Evaluate leadership decision-making before, during, and after a major hurricane.
  • Discuss facility shutdown, employee safety, and storm preparation procedures.
  • Review communications with employees, customers, vendors, and other stakeholders.
  • Assess public relations and customer response following service disruption and cargo damage.
  • Examine business resumption challenges created by closure, access issues, and infrastructure impacts.
  • Identify opportunities to strengthen storm preparedness and recovery planning.

Typical Participants

  • Executive leadership
  • Operations management
  • Facilities leadership
  • Logistics or supply chain leadership
  • Communications or public affairs staff
  • Human resources
  • Business continuity or crisis management team members

Exercise Format

Conduct-It-Yourself Tabletop Exercises are structured, discussion-based simulations designed to help organizations test their response to disruptive events without the time and cost of a fully facilitated exercise. Participants are placed in the middle of a realistic scenario as it unfolds and must work through decisions, priorities, and consequences as a leadership team.

Each downloadable exercise package includes everything needed to conduct the session internally, including facilitator instructions, exercise overview materials, participant forms, a detailed scenario script, and a ready-to-run PowerPoint presentation that guides the scenario and discussion. The materials are designed so organizations can conduct the exercise as delivered or customize the storyline and supporting materials to reflect their own facilities, operations, and testing objectives.

Most exercises are designed to be conducted in approximately 2 to 4 hours. A typical agenda includes an exercise overview and scenario briefing, the facilitated disaster simulation discussion, group review and preparation for debriefing, and a structured post-exercise discussion to capture lessons learned and improvement opportunities.

Exercise Focus

  • Emergency Response
  • Crisis Communications
  • Public Relations
  • Business Resumption

Related Tabletop Exercise Scenarios

Organizations exploring this scenario may also find these exercises useful:

Looking for a Facilitated Exercise for Your Business?

Many organizations choose to run their exercises with an experienced facilitator to guide discussion, introduce evolving scenario developments, and capture improvement opportunities.

If you would prefer a professionally facilitated tabletop exercise tailored to your business, learn more about our consulting services.

Explore Facilitated Tabletop Exercises for General Business

Purchase & Download

This exercise is delivered as a downloadable package that includes facilitator instructions, scenario materials, and structured discussion prompts to guide the exercise.

SKU CIYGB007
$595.00