The Hurricane and Tropical Storm Season officially starts on June 1st. But we heard just now that Louisiana sent out storm and flood warnings for Alberto.
Alberto is a strong tropical storm that’s been gathering strength in the Gulf of Mexico for a few days. It’s not too late to prepare, especially if you live in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, anywhere in Louisiana or along the Gulf Coast.
It only takes one storm to change your life, your business, and your community.
Hurricanes are among nature’s most powerful and devastating storms. But, tropical storms can sometimes be just as bad. If you live or work in an area prone to hurricanes, or even areas well away from coastlines that can be hit with dangerous flooding, destructive winds, and tornadoes, you need to get ready now.
What should you do?
Follow these basic steps to protect your business:
- Establish a business-continuity/disaster-recovery plan for your technology. Back up your data to a secure offsite location. If a hurricane or tropical storm strikes your area, and you lose power, or your place of business is damaged, a properly implemented plan ensures you can retrieve your critical data and services.
- Consider cloud services. Data centers have systems in place to protect them from the most violent storms. Almost everything can be stored in the cloud today, from email servers, desktop systems, telephone services and much more. Storing your business data and services in the cloud ensures that if your office is out of commission, your business isn’t.
- Install power-protection systems and backup power. A generator is a great investment to provide alternate power if a hurricane shuts down your electricity. Generators can run for days, providing power to critical systems and battery-backup systems. It allows for all systems to be properly shut down and protected from surges when power is cut and comes back on.
There are many more Hurricane and Storm Readiness strategies that your business should establish.
We’re here to help. If you need confirmation that your computer systems, backups, and telephones can survive the next big storm, we can check this out for you.