Are you Prepared?

I hope you don’t think this is ‘beating a dead horse’, but I can’t help but draw your attention to the news coming out of the Southern California area this past week. Over 250,000 people had to be evacuated from the area due to wildfires fueled by a season (or more) of dry weather and driven by over 75 mph winds...

Last issue we talked about problems that occurred in a small Idaho town due to wildfires this summer. Ultimately little property damage occurred and people were able to return to their homes fairly soon. Now we have a much larger example, with more devastating results, due to fires that have wreaked havoc in Southern California. This time, billions of dollars in property damage and human, as well as animal, lives have been lost. For those who survive, with ‘only’ the loss of homes and businesses, recovering from this tragedy will take years. Some may never completely return to a so called ‘normal’ life.

From a business information technology perspective this again points out the need to prepare to run your business from outside of your primary location. It points out the need to have offsite backup of important documents, programs, and data that can be accessed when needed. It points out the importance of having alternative sources of supplies, and even employee resources. We could add to this list forever, but the point is that you need to take a long hard look at all of the areas where you are potentially vulnerable.

It is also not just your traditional office/business that needs to look at this issue. How many of the homes lost were used as a base for a home business? I don’t think we can estimate and will most likely never know. It may be even more important for those who are running a business out of their home to anticipate circumstances that will cause them to rapidly move their business to another location. Being able to move computer equipment, paper files of customer information, internet services, etc… all require careful and diligent planning. Two items to seriously look into are: Backup generators for temporary power needs and External Hard Drives to backup your data.

No amount of planning can prevent a disaster of the magnitude presented in and around San Diego. If it is going to happen it will happen. But, you can improve your odds of surviving, and being able to, quickly, return to some form of normalcy by being prepared.