LA Wildfires Underscore How Important Disaster Preparedness Is
Wildfires in Los Angeles: Key Considerations for Employers Navigating Disaster Response and Compliance
Wildfires continue to rage across the Los Angeles area, causing death, massive destruction of property, and forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes. President Biden has approved a "Major Disaster Declaration" for California because of the wildfires. This disaster also impacts employers' obligations under California law, including California's workplace safety and health statute, California wage and hour law, Cal-WARN, and the Los Angeles Fair Work Week ordinance.

Wildfires, pushed by high winds and drought conditions, have swept through areas around Los Angeles, destroying homes and businesses. As firefighters work to control the blazes, tens of thousands of residents are under evacuation orders and schools are closed. Thousands across Southern California have lost power, and many more are at risk of experiencing preemptive power outages taken as a precaution to prevent additional fires.

The wildfires-as with similar natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods-have created further challenges for employers, forcing them to adapt their operations and put their emergency preparedness plans to the test. For others, the disaster is a devastating reminder of the importance of preparedness-and its limits-as natural disasters can arise quickly and without warning.

Here are some key considerations for employers impacted by these latest wildfires.

Emergency Preparedness

Emergency plans and communication protocols. Employers with employees or workplaces impacted by the wildfires may want to consider their emergency response plans and communication protocols and consult emergency contact lists. Communication with employees is critical to maintaining employee safety, keeping track of employees amid evacuations, and informing employees of potential hazards affecting the workplace or impacting transportation.

Business disruptions. Affected employers may want to determine which business functions are critical and implement plans to maintain these operations during the wildfires.

Flexible work arrangements. With evacuation orders and travel advisories, many employers may have to close physical workplaces and/or employees will need to find other work arrangements. Employers may want to consider temporary remote work arrangements, adjusting schedules to accommodate for transportation or safety issues, or temporarily suspending operations if necessary to ensure safety. ogletree.com

   RELATED: Why Los Angeles was unprepared for fire


3.3% of All Target Stores are Within the Area Impacted by LA Wildfires
Some Retail Stocks Could Take Hits From the Los Angeles Wildfires
Target (TGT) is among the retailers with the most exposure to the deadly wildfires that have raged this week in the Los Angeles area, JPMorgan analysts said Friday.1

Sixty-six Target locations, or 3.3% of its total stores, are within the impacted region, which includes parts of the Los Angeles, Pasadena, Glendale and other areas, according to JPMorgan. Luxury furniture retailer RH (RH), has four stores in the region, or 5% of its total; AutoZone (AZ0) has 85 locations in the area, or 1.3% of its total.

Generally, JPMorgan said, "natural disasters result in an immediate headwind to sales," adding that home improvement retailers often eventually experience tailwinds as an area rebuilds. Home Depot (HD) has 25 stores in the area, 1.2% of its total, and Lowe's (LOW) has 9 locations, or 0.9%.

Other retailers with a significant store presence in the wildfire area include Costco (COST) (14 stores, 2.3%), Williams-Sonoma (WSM) (12 stores, 2.3%), Best Buy (BBY) (20 stores, 2.1%), and O'Reilly Automotive (ORLY) (53 stores, 0.9%), JPMorgan said.

The wildfires have killed at least 10 people, according to the Los Angeles County authorities, and caused as much as $150 billion in damages, per AccuWeather. investopedia.com


T-Mobile Impacted by the Fires
T-Mobile Stands Prepared as Wildfires Impact Southern California
T-Mobile's network has held strong. We have restored roughly half of the sites that were impacted by commercial power loss. As conditions safely allow, our teams are evaluating impacted sites in Altadena, Duarte, Calabasas, Malibu, Fillmore and Agoura Hills, and continuing to deploy and refuel portable generators to sites until commercial power is restored.

Today T-Mobile and Starlink opened up T-Mobile Starlink Direct-to-Cellular service over impacted areas of Southern California to deliver wireless emergency alerts and SMS and enable 911 texting. While SpaceX's direct-to-cell constellation has not been fully deployed, we are once again temporarily making this early test version available for those who need it most.

T-Mobile continues to engage with federal, state and local officials and emergency management agencies across California to help ensure critical connectivity, including deploying connectivity solutions like Wi-Fi routers at incident command posts at Zuma Beach in Malibu and Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena. morningstar.com


Retail Avoids Another Supply Chain Blow
Tentative labor deal struck to avoid strike at East Coast, Gulf Coast ports
A potential strike that would have shut down ports along the East and Gulf coasts and dealt a serious blow to the retail supply chain has been averted.

A tentative new labor deal has been reached between the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX). The six-year contract expired on Sept. 30 last year and, following a three-day strike, was extended until Jan. 15.

In a joint statement, the two parties said the agreement protects union jobs and allows ports on the East and Gulf coasts to modernize with new technology, "making them safer and more efficient, and creating the capacity they need to keep our supply chains strong."  chainstoreage.com


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Last week's #1 article --

3,300+ Fewer Crimes Committed in NYC in 2024
Major crimes in 2024 dropped 5% in NYC as murders, shootings down
New York City experienced a 5% drop in major crime in 2024, Mayor Adams and NYPD Commissioner announced Monday, as they moved to send 200 more cops into the subway system. The drop in crime was led by a dip in murders, from 391 in 2023 to 377 last year, and 48 fewer people shot.

"This translates to 3,362 fewer incidents of major crime last year compared to the year before - and these are not just numbers," Tisch said. "We're talking about thousands of people who are not injured abused, attacked or targeted by criminals."

There was also a 5% drop in major crime in the subway system and in housing projects, Tisch and Adams announced in a press conference at NYPD headquarters at One Police Plaza in Lower Manhattan. The additional cops, Tisch noted, will be assigned to ride the trains and patrol the platforms - the two places where 78% of subway crime occurs.

Another move, already underway, Tisch said, is the assignment of 650 cops to newly-designated "zones," crime hotspots across the city, with plans to create weekly internal reports detailing "specific segments of neighborhoods, blocks and even certain streets, where we see spikes in violence and disorder." In the summer months that 650 will grow to 1,000.

She noted the recent drop in retail theft on Fulton St. in Downtown Brooklyn that followed the creation of such a zone.

Felony assaults also increased, by 5%, with spikes in stranger attacks, domestic violence and cops assaulted, Tisch said. nydailynews.com
 

Is a TikTok Ban Finally Coming?
Supreme Court signals it will uphold ban on TikTok over national security concerns and other takeaways from oral arguments
A majority of the Supreme Court appeared likely to uphold a controversial ban on TikTok over concerns about its ties to China, with justices lobbing pointed questions at lawyers for the social media app and a group of its content creators.

During more than two hours of oral arguments, many of the justices appeared to view the sell-or-ban law approved by Congress in April not as one that primarily implicates the First Amendment but rather as an effort to regulate the potential foreign control of an app used by 170 million Americans.

The law, which would restrict the app's operations in the United States if its Chinese-based parent company ByteDance did not divest from the platform, is set to take effect on January 19 unless the high court steps in to block it temporarily. A decision on that question - the ban's implementation date - could come quickly, long before the justices resolve any underlying questions about speech protections.

Two presidents - Donald Trump and Joe Biden - have both raised concerns in the past about both content manipulation on the platform and its data collection practices. TikTok argued those concerns were speculative and resisted any suggestion that the Chinese government had a role in picking the cat videos, recipes and news that millions of Americans view on the app.

Justices across the ideological spectrum raised doubts that the TikTok ban even implicated the First Amendment. That's a bad sign for TikTok, because to win, it had to prove first that the First Amendment applies in the case and then that the law has failed to meet its tests.

In an exchange with a lawyer for users of the application, Chief Justice John Roberts said that, in passing the law, Congress was "fine with the expression."  cnn.com
 

The Top Threat to Business Growth?
Cyberattacks, tech disruption rank as top threats to business growth

Two in five executives view data breaches and leaks as the most financially burdensome man-made threats, a Chubb study found.

Cyberattacks and technology disruption ranked as top threats to business growth in a recent Harris poll commissioned by global insurer Chubb.

Cyber breaches and data leaks were cited by 40% of executives as growth disruptors, far outpacing other categories including accidents, regulations, social unrest and hazmat exposures, according to a report on the findings.

"Risks that are reported on regularly today - especially those related to cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, climate change and reputational damage as a result of viral social media events - were either previously non-existent or have intensified greatly over the last 10 years," the report said.

The global average cost of a data breach last year was nearly $4.9 million, a 10% spike compared with 2023 levels, according to IBM research. cybersecuritydive.com

 
Companies Need to 'Take Ownership of Cybersecurity Risk'
CISA director reiterates prior calls for C-suites, boards to take cyber risk ownership

Jen Easterly said companies need to consider cybersecurity threats as core risks that need to be fully incorporated into corporate business strategy.

Companies need to take ownership of cybersecurity risk at the highest levels of corporate governance, including senior management and at the board level, Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said in a blog post released Wednesday.

Companies need to embrace cybersecurity as a strategic business risk, Easterly said. They can no longer afford to relegate that responsibility to their IT department or corporate CISO without the awareness and participation of the C-suite and corporate directors.

"The time is now for CEOs and boards to actively embrace corporate cyber responsibility as a matter of good governance, recognizing that every organization has an obligation to reasonably assure the safety of their employees, partners and customers," Easterly said in the post.   cybersecuritydive.com


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