As Hurricane Irma tore through Florida this weekend and continues to make its way through the Southeast, ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols pledged the association’s continued support to banks affected by the severe storms, flooding and high winds.
“Our hearts go out to all of those affected by Hurricane Irma. As the first damage assessments start to come in, it is clear that this storm delivered a serious blow to Florida, and remains a threat to other states,” Nichols said. “ABA is closely coordinating with state bankers associations in the affected areas, as well as local, state and federal officials to ensure our customers and communities have access to the banking system. ABA will continue to support the relief effort in any way we can, and we are pleased but not surprised to see so many banks already stepping up to help.”
To help banks and state bankers associations, ABA has made resources available to help with incident response and crisis communications, including individual playbooks for each state and information from the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center. ABA urges all banks to join the FS-ISAC to receive members-only communications relating to disaster response and preparedness. ABA also provides a free members-only Crisis Communications Toolkit, which includes talking points, FAQs for frontline staff, communications to customers, consumer tips and sample news releases and social media posts for a disaster response situation.
