Risk managers say the past can be prologue when it comes to catastrophe planning, particularly when most forecasters are predicting another unusually active hurricane season.

With catastrophe management plans undergoing constant review and revision, no detail is too small to avoid consideration. The process can include "hardening" facilities, enhancing communications networks to ensuring backup power sources are available, and bringing operations back online as soon as possible following a catastrophe, among other things.

Sometimes, an expenditure of just a few cents can reap dollars in benefits, some experts say.

"We went through Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and at the time had about a $95 million loss," said Scott Clark, risk and benefits officer for Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Miami. "Since that time, we have been continuing to try to fine-tune our hurricane-preparedness activities."

A key part of this year's planning is filling in blanks that were uncovered in last year's storms, say risk managers.

For example, Mr. Clark said the school system has better organized its debris removal process. He said the system has advance contracts in place for removing debris, and is working on getting more pre-catastrophe contracts signed.

Getting contracts and reconstruction materials in place long before a catastrophe is key, said Steve Sachs, senior vp and managing director of Hilb Rogal & Hobbs Co.'s national real estate practice in Columbia, Md. In a natural disaster--unlike a single event such as a building fire--resources and labor become scarce as demand increases, he said. Given that a hurricane could affect a wide area, risk managers would do well to have suppliers of rebuilding basics, such as roofing materials, signed up outside the hurricane zone, Mr. Sachs said.

Lance Ewing, vp-risk management in Memphis, Tenn., for Harrah's Entertainment Inc., said the Las Vegas-based company realized after Hurricane Katrina ravaged Harrah's Gulf Coast casinos that it had "to back up our backup supplies" for building materials such as plywood.

"We had to get drywall from as far away as Memphis in order to help us with remediation because our supplier in Alabama was just as adversely affected by the storm," he said.

Simple things can make a big difference, said Mike Burke, vp and manager of catastrophe exposures at Johnston, R.I.-based Factory Mutual Insurance Co., which does business as FM Global.

After Katrina, FM Global conducted its normal post-event survey of policyholders, said Mr. Burke. The survey of 476 locations found that 310 had followed the insurer's loss control recommendations completely but the other 166 had not, he said.

Those that completely followed the recommendations sustained losses of 34 cents per $100 of total insured value, said Mr. Burke. The others suffered losses of $2.34 per $100 of insured value, he said.

"Three out of four recommendations (are) for more screws" to better fasten building components, said Mr. Burke.

Other aspects of preparation are similarly basic, noted Stan Smith, vp-risk management and security at Boyd Gaming Corp. in Las Vegas, which operates a riverboat casino in Kenner, La., and a racetrack casino in Vinton, La. "We have more equipment," such as sleeping bags and battery-operated lanterns, "ready to roll," he said.

For the Miami-Dade schools, the issue of fuel logistics was "horrendous" after Hurricane Wilma, Mr. Clark said. The fuel was available in storage tanks, but the lack of power meant it couldn't be pumped into vehicles. The school system now makes sure it has emergency generators in place at every fueling station so trucks and school buses can continue to roll, he said.

Another area that's undergoing upgrading in preparation for this year's hurricane season is the broad area of communications.

Eileen Gardner, risk manager for Brunswick County, N.C., in Bolivia, N.C., said Randy Thompson, the county's emergency management director, has "secured satellite backup communications" systems that allow the transfer of voice, data and images during a catastrophe.

The county has also put in place a Web tool that allows real-time communications on a secure Web site, which includes a geographic mapping system tool "that allows us to hone in directly to where the blocked roads are," she said.

John Phelps, director-risk management at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Florida in Jacksonville, Fla., said the company is trying to "better understand the personal situation of our employees in the affected areas and to do it faster. Unless and until we have an assessment of our employees' circumstances, we can't help respond and relieve some of the suffering that's going on. Having a system to better collect that information is essential," he said.

The Blues are taking two approaches to the issue, he said. One approach is to use a manual system in which employees in unaffected areas receives calls from and offer assistance to their colleagues in the hurricane zone. The other--and the Blues have already bought the equipment--is to set up an automated system in which employees could provide information, such as their whereabouts, by pushing buttons on the phone.

Boyd Gaming has distributed wallet cards with an emergency hotline telephone number in the event a property is closed to all employees, said Mr. Smith. Employees can call with their locations and receive information about benefits and other concerns, he said. The company currently has two rooms in its Las Vegas headquarters capable of functioning as two emergency operation centers at one location.

For the Miami-Dade schools, part of the communications challenge has been to identify exactly which employees constitute "essential personnel," who must report to duty, said Mr. Clark. He noted that schools function as hurricane shelters, and essential personnel must be on site not only to perform damage assessment but to manage the temporary shelters as well.

Mr. Phelps said the Blues are stressing individual employee responsibility for hurricane preparedness "more than we ever have." After Katrina, the Blues sent tractor trailers full of basic emergency needs to employees in affected areas, he said. That led to the conclusion "that our employees need to do a better job of preparedness" and stockpile essential supplies, he said.

However, even the best planning can't prevent all losses, particularly when a hurricane like Katrina is involved. Harrah's Mr. Ewing noted that in Mississippi, a change in law means that floating casinos--which were heavily damaged in last year's hurricane--can be rebuilt onshore.

"In the gaming industry, we were blessed in Mississippi because the legislature saw some light at the end of the tunnel and allowed us to build casinos on the land, because most of our land-based properties weathered the storm much better than the floating casinos that we had before," he said.

"As we begin to rebuild in the Mississippi area, our viewpoint is to try to work hand-in-hand with Mother Nature, although she tends to be more vengeful than we would like," Mr. Ewing said.

He said Harrah's is making architectural modifications in rebuilding, which should enable its properties to better withstand the brunt of storms.

"We're building to a larger category storm than we had before; if we had to build to a Category 3, we're now building to a Category 4," Mr. Ewing said. "In addition to that, we are also looking to where are our high-value exposures as it faces the storm, so therefore the parking garages will take more of the brunt of the storms than will the casinos, restaurants and entertainment facilities."

The Florida Blues also just finished building a new, hardened Tier 3 data facility just outside Jacksonville, said Mr. Phelps. "We have built it with the capability to provide a backup emergency management location" should it be necessary, he said.

A Tier 4 facility is the most hardened, and the new Blues facility incorporates some elements of Tier 4 construction, he said.

"For a risk manager, it's the best looking five acres of reinforced concrete you're ever going to see," Mr. Phelps said.