Tornadoes, floods, lightning strikes, wildfires and hurricaneseason waiting in the wings; the rain of frogs and plague oflocusts can't be far off.

With half of 2011 already gone and virtually every region of thecountry stricken to some degree by natural disasters, this year isshaping up to be one of the most unique—and costly—in manyyears.

Disasters ranging from flooding along the Missouri River to atornado in Joplin, Mo., to wildfires in Texas and Arizona that havedamaged, destroyed or otherwise impacted scores of businesses, jobsand crops this year. Mid-America, long popular with insurersbecause of the lack of big coastal risk exposures, is provingconventional wisdom wrong and ringing up as much as $7 billion inlosses from the May spate of tornadoes. (Fora stunning visual account of the devastation in Joplin from theunique perspective of a State Farm agent, please visit our Webportal at propertycasualty360.com).

And it isn't all about weather, either. At this writing, thestory of a massive E.coli poisoning, with 22 dead and thousandssickened so far, is still unfolding across Europe.

Man-made problems can wreak havoc on businesses and individuals,too, especially in the wired age. Just look at the securitybreaches at Google and Sony (which could end up costing the company$170 million), and the personal woes of Rep. Anthony Weiner afterhis Twitter indiscretions went viral.

If nothing else, this spring's unprecedented events should serveas a warning to everyone that both personal and business fallbackplans are mandatory, and that you'd better be prepared foranything. The recently released dismal unemployment figures are inpart still a result of the fallout from the March earthquake inJapan, which is still disrupting critical manufacturing supplychains. Honda, Toyota and Nissan all reported big declines in salesfor May, citing parts and production shortages.

We've discussed the importance of disaster preparedness plansbefore, back when the country was worried about a swine fluepidemic. While the dire predictions of that time never came topass, foresighted people who addressed issues like alternatelocations, generators, employee phone trees and backups for theirexisting supply chains may have been grateful for it this year iftheir region was part of this spring's swath of destruction.

If you haven't made disaster planning a priority for both yourbusiness and your clients, what are you waiting for?