By Jon Lober
•
20 Sep, 2024
While our eastern Missouri offices are a safe 700 miles from the Gulf, we're no stranger to severe storms on the Central Plains. It’s impossible to know what to fully expect when a tornado or hurricane is headed your way, but we want to help you prepare to the best of our abilities. So how should your office prepare for severe weather (or other natural disasters)? Here's a checklist to follow. Severe weather tech checklist for SMBs Have a written plan for disaster recovery. More on that below. Create a tech inventory. Ensure you have an inventory of all the technology at your office. Communicate the computer equipment checklist to all staff. Prepare network documentation. – Make sure your IT Manager or IT Consultant has this information and can provide it to you in case you need it. Ensure your data is backed up offsite. Most businesses have an onsite backup. Having an offsite backup will ensure you maintain access to your data, even if your brick and mortar suffers devastating damage. Test your backup. Ask your IT team to verify that the backup is intact, and your data can be recovered in the case of a disaster. Establish a plan for remote access. Identify which parts of your operation can work remote in the case of an outage or disaster. Ensure that users can work remotely if needed. Create an SOP for natural disasters. Communicate with staff so they understand exactly what the procedure is if you are unable to return to the office for multiple days or even weeks. Practice working remotely. While many businesses have an idea of how to work remotely following the pandemic, working out the kinks before a potential outage will reduce your productivity losses. Ensure your IT team is prepared to respond to a server outage or assist with bringing your technology up after the storm. If you don’t have an IT team or work with a small group, develop a relationship with a larger entity that can respond quickly in the case of an incident. Set up call forwarding. Ensure your phones are forwarded to a cell phone, alternative number, or set up to a test softphone/software phone (if your phone system allows this). Special considerations hurricane preparedness Shut down computers and unplug all machines, including printers. Move computers and other computer equipment off the floor. This will protect your equipment from flooding. Unplug ethernet cables from computers or docking stations If possible, use dry bags or plastic to wrap electronics. Coordinate with IT to schedule a normal shutdown of servers prior to the storm. Consider getting a wireless internet failover. Your main coax or fiber line may have outages: having a backup internet option could be the missing link to keep your operation moving.
