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Earthquake Website Communication Checklist for Local Businesses

A practical checklist for updating your local business website after an earthquake, from status alerts to appointment and inquiry handling.

The StoopCraft Team
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Put safety and official updates first

After an earthquake, your first priority is people’s safety—not marketing, bookings, or lead generation.

If there are emergency concerns, follow guidance from authoritative sources such as the U.S. Geological Survey and local emergency management. Do not use your business website to make structural-safety claims, report hazards you have not verified, or give emergency instructions beyond official guidance.

A magnitude 5.0 earthquake was reported near Akutan, Alaska, and a separate magnitude 4.8 event was reported in the Unimak Island region. Those reports do not establish that every business in the area was affected, closed, or receiving more customer inquiries. Still, an earthquake is a good reason for local businesses to prepare a clear website communication process in case access, staffing, appointments, or service availability changes.

The goal is simple: if customers visit your site while your team is managing an uncertain situation, they should be able to quickly understand your current status and the best next step.

Table of contents

Start with one clear homepage status update

Do not make customers hunt through your website, social feeds, or search results for basic operational information.

Place a short status notice near the top of the homepage. If your business is temporarily closed, operating with limited availability, experiencing delays, or still confirming plans, say that plainly.

A useful homepage alert answers four questions:

  1. What is your current operating status? For example: open, temporarily closed, limited appointments available, remote-only, or evaluating next steps.
  2. What should customers do now? Call, use the contact form, reschedule online, wait for a confirmation, or check back later.
  3. What should customers not assume? Avoid leaving visitors to guess that normal hours, same-day service, or walk-in availability still apply.
  4. When was this information updated? Add a visible date and time, including the time zone where useful.

Keep this notice factual. If you are still assessing whether you can operate, say so. It is better to publish “We are confirming today’s availability” than to leave normal-hours messaging online when you cannot confirm it.

What not to put in the alert

Avoid language that creates risk or confusion, such as:

  • “Our building is safe” unless that has been properly verified through the appropriate process.
  • “No one in the area was affected.”
  • “Emergency services are available through us.”
  • “We will reopen at [time]” when reopening is not confirmed.
  • Long explanations about the event that do not help customers take action.

Your website update should focus on your business’s own current availability—not unverified conditions elsewhere.

Update the information customers use to make plans

A homepage alert is important, but it should not be the only change. Customers may enter your website through a service page, contact page, booking page, or Google search result rather than the homepage.

Review the pages and tools that directly affect a customer’s decision to visit, call, book, or request service.

Check your operating hours

If your hours are changing, update them wherever they appear on your site:

  • Header or footer
  • Contact page
  • Location page
  • Appointment-booking page
  • Individual service pages
  • Pop-ups or banners
  • Google Business Profile, if applicable

If you cannot confirm hours, use language such as “Hours may be limited today” and direct visitors to the best channel for confirmation.

For more guidance on keeping your website and Business Profile aligned, see Google Business Profile and your website: how they work together to get you found.

Update appointment and booking pages

If you accept appointments, bookings, pickups, consultations, or reservations, check whether your website is still presenting normal availability.

Depending on your situation, you may need to:

  • Pause online booking temporarily.
  • Add a note that appointments may require confirmation.
  • Turn off same-day appointment claims.
  • Add rescheduling instructions for existing customers.
  • Explain whether customers should expect a call, email, or text confirmation.
  • Remove promotions that promise a specific response or turnaround time you may not be able to meet.

Customers with existing appointments need a clear answer. A short booking-page notice can prevent unnecessary calls and reduce no-shows.

For a broader review of booking-page essentials, read Local business appointment booking website checklist: what customers need before they schedule.

Review location, access, and pickup instructions

If customers normally visit your location, do not leave old access instructions in place if you cannot confirm they remain accurate.

Review:

  • Address and parking details
  • “Walk-ins welcome” language
  • Pickup instructions
  • Entrance directions
  • Event or class location details
  • Embedded maps
  • Location-specific calls to action

Only publish access changes you know to be true. If you are uncertain, state that visitors should contact you before coming by rather than guessing.

Prepare your phones, forms, and appointment process

An earthquake does not automatically mean your business will receive more inquiries. But if normal operations are uncertain, businesses should prepare for the possibility that customers will call or submit forms looking for confirmation.

Your website should set expectations without promising an immediate response your team may not be able to provide.

Add a response-time expectation

If staff are working remotely, handling limited communications, or coordinating changed schedules, update your contact page and form confirmation message.

Examples:

  • “Our team is reviewing new requests as availability allows.”
  • “We may take longer than usual to respond. Please include your preferred contact method.”
  • “For an existing appointment, include your appointment date and name in your message.”
  • “Please do not submit duplicate requests if you have already contacted us.”

This can help your team sort messages later without making unsupported claims about service availability.

Keep forms short during an interruption

When customers are stressed or using a phone with limited connectivity, a long form creates friction.

For a temporary status period, prioritize the information your team needs to respond:

  • Name
  • Phone number or email
  • Requested service or appointment date
  • Location, if relevant
  • A short message

Avoid adding unnecessary fields. If an inquiry volume increase does occur, simple, complete requests are easier for a limited team to triage. See Local business lead form fields: what to ask and what to leave out for a practical field-by-field review.

Confirm that form notifications still reach someone

Before relying on your website contact form, test it.

Submit a test inquiry and confirm:

  • The form submits successfully.
  • The customer receives a confirmation message.
  • Your team receives the notification.
  • The notification goes to a monitored inbox.
  • The form does not promise a response time you cannot currently support.

If your usual email, CRM, phone system, or booking platform is unavailable, your website should point visitors toward the channel you can actually monitor.

Communicate service-area and availability changes carefully

Some businesses may be able to work only in certain areas, offer only remote services, delay travel, or temporarily limit the types of work they accept. If that applies to your business, make the distinction clear.

Do not say “We are serving the entire area” unless you can confirm it. Do not imply that nearby communities have the same conditions as your location.

Instead, use specific, conditional language:

  • “Service availability may vary by location.”
  • “Please contact us to confirm availability in your area.”
  • “We are currently prioritizing existing scheduled customers.”
  • “Remote consultations remain available.”
  • “Some appointment times may need to be adjusted.”

This is especially important for home-service businesses, mobile providers, delivery businesses, and businesses with multiple locations. A focused service-area page can reduce confusion during normal operations as well. See Local business website service areas: what to include without creating confusion.

Make the update accessible and easy to find

A status message only helps if customers can read it on the device and connection they have available.

Use these practical checks:

  • Put the most important sentence first.
  • Use plain language instead of vague phrases such as “We are monitoring the situation.”
  • Do not rely on color alone to communicate open or closed status.
  • Make buttons and links large enough to use on a phone.
  • Ensure the alert can be read by screen readers.
  • Avoid large images, autoplay video, or heavy pop-ups that may slow the page.
  • Keep the phone number clickable on mobile.
  • Include a text-based contact option if appropriate.

Many visitors will check your site from a phone. Your status alert, contact options, and booking instructions should all be usable without pinching, zooming, or searching through a complicated navigation menu. Review Why your local business website has to work on a phone first for more mobile-first guidance.

Use a simple inquiry-response plan

If your staff is distracted, displaced, working remotely, or operating with limited capacity, a lightweight process is better than an ambitious one that nobody can maintain.

Assign one person, if possible, to own the website status update and one person to monitor new inquiries. If one person must do both, reduce the number of places that need updating.

A basic triage process can look like this:

  1. Separate existing customers from new requests. Existing appointments, orders, and active projects may need a different response path.
  2. Mark urgent business requests clearly. For example, a scheduled appointment today may need faster confirmation than a general quote request. Do not represent your business as an emergency provider unless that is accurate.
  3. Use a consistent short reply. Give the current status, explain any expected delay, and avoid commitments you cannot confirm.
  4. Track what you have answered. A shared inbox label, spreadsheet, or simple list can prevent duplicate replies and missed messages.
  5. Update the website when the situation changes. A stale alert can create almost as much confusion as no alert.

If your usual communication tools experience disruption, a webpage with current instructions can serve as the stable reference point you link to from other channels. For a similar website continuity approach, see Google outage response checklist for local businesses: what to update and how to handle new leads.

Copy-and-adapt status update template

Use this short template only after confirming the details you publish:

Current business update — [date, time, time zone]
Our availability is currently [open / limited / temporarily paused / being confirmed].
[Brief, factual detail about appointments, walk-ins, pickup, or service availability.]
Please [call / submit the contact form / use the booking page] before [visiting / scheduling / requesting service].
We will update this page when our status changes.

Here is an example for a business that has not yet confirmed its schedule:

Current business update — October 1, [time] Alaska time
We are confirming today’s operating availability. Please contact us before visiting or scheduling an appointment. Existing customers may experience schedule changes, and our response time may be longer than usual. We will update this page when we have confirmed information to share.

This wording does not claim damage, safety conditions, area-wide impacts, or a reopening timeline. It simply tells customers what the business knows and what to do next.

Before you remove the alert

Do not remove an earthquake-related notice just because a day has passed. Remove or revise it when your normal information is accurate again.

Before returning to standard website messaging, confirm:

  • Your posted hours are current.
  • Booking availability reflects what you can honor.
  • Your service-area information is accurate.
  • Your phone and contact form work.
  • Any temporary cancellation or rescheduling instructions are removed or replaced.
  • The homepage no longer suggests an interruption that has ended.
  • Your Google Business Profile and other public listings match the website.

If you are reopening after a temporary interruption, a dedicated review can help prevent outdated messages from lingering across your site. Read Local business website reopening checklist: what to update before you resume service.

A calm, current website update is the goal

The reports of a magnitude 5.0 earthquake near Akutan and a separate magnitude 4.8 event in the Unimak Island region are a reminder that local businesses may need to communicate quickly when conditions change. The available reports do not show that businesses were closed, damaged, or experiencing an inquiry increase, so each business should publish updates based only on its own confirmed circumstances and official guidance.

A clear homepage notice, accurate hours, realistic appointment instructions, working contact options, and a timestamped update can help customers understand what to do without asking your team to make promises it cannot keep.

If you want a local-business website that is easier to update when circumstances change, StoopCraft builds done-for-you websites for local businesses and includes on-page SEO for $99/month.

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