With power slowly being restored to portions of northern Alabama, most credit unions were reporting near-normaloperations as CU-sponsored relief efforts and financial aidprograms to victims of last week's devastating tornadoes were beingexpanded.

At the same, CU leaders and regulators across the South were weighing and validatingdisaster preparedness plans with one, the $3 million Redstone FCUof Huntsville, Ala., reminding CUs elsewhere of the urgency ofdisaster recovery testing.

Citing Redstone's ability to keep many of its ATMs operating onemergency generators with advance fuel orders, Roberta Rodgers,vice president of risk management, said, “Our team has done anoutstanding job because we push for DR tests and tabletopexercises. I think there'll be a lot less resistance from businessunits in the future when we say it's time to update the plans orhave a DR test.”