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.”

Writing to peer CU attorneys, Rodgers said her CU can “testifyfirst hand just how important it is to plan for worst case scenariobecause worst case became reality here” last Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the League of Southeastern Credit Unions said it iskeeping a running log on its website of how Alabama CUs arefaring in recovering from the storms as they put branches back online or receive assistance.

The $1 billion Pen Air FCU in Pensacola, Fla., said it hasshipped more than 1,200 bottles of water to hard-hit communities innorthern Alabama along with a mobile branch destined for CommunityCU in Gadsden, which lost its Rainsville branch.

Pen Air, which has three branches in southern Alabama, said itspresident/CEO, Ron Fields, personally drove the first round ofsupplies last week with the CU setting up collection drop offpoints for additional supplies.

“Pen Air is just trying to help out those who need it duringthis terrible time,” Fields said. “The spirit of Pen Air's membersand employees has always been one of community and this is noexception.”

At the national level, the National Credit Union Foundation said$5,000 in tornado donations were received over the weekend to itsCUAid effort with that figure expected to rise substantiallyduring the week.