Disaster Preparedness Month is Here-Are You Ready?

Did you know that the US government has designated September as National Disaster Preparedness Month?

Fortunately here in the Midwest region we are unlikely to experience the strong and dangerous effects of Hurricane Florence, although we may experience heavier than usual rainfall, possible flooding, and power outages. The time to prepare for storm damage and power loss is now, and after securing one’s personal safety and home, it’s important to consider the impact this storm could have on your business.

Here are a few business continuity tips you should take when a storm or other natural disaster event approaches:

• Create a phone tree for your organization and stay in touch.
• Have a plan and contingencies.
  • What do you need to take from your office?
  • How will you support your customers, and from where?
• Send out the storm plan to your employees, customers and partners.  Include a communications schedule and stick to it.
  • Send an update to employees every few hours with what you know and don’t know.
  • Send updates to customers, partners and suppliers with updated that affect them regularly.
• If your business cannot withstand a period of lengthy downtime, secure an off-site facility in a safe location for you and your employees, or ensure that everyone is able to work remotely.
• Heavy storm activity can put data centers out of commission.  Make sue your business data, backups, applications and server images are stored off-site.
  • Your IT professionals will be able to restore systems either virtually via the cloud or at the site where you are resuming operations.
  • If time allows, test the backups of crucial servers before the storm hits.

For more tips and information on how to protect from natural disasters, download our Hurricane and Tropical Storm Survival Guide here.