Computer Doctors

What SMBs need to know about hurricane and disaster planning

Creating an effective IT disaster plan for use during hurricanes and other weather emergencies empowers your organization to not only reduce risks but also bounce back swiftly from unforeseen disruptions.

With a solid strategy in place, you can overcome challenges and uphold your operational efficiency and customer trust with confidence.

Start your preparations well ahead of storm season to enable thorough testing and valuable adjustments to your plan.

Take a proactive stance by evaluating your current systems to uncover vulnerabilities that could make a bad situation much worse.

Incorporating regular training and drills will ensure that every team member is well-versed in the procedures and ready to take action during an emergency.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Assess Your Risks
Identify Vulnerabilities: Understand which types of disasters are most likely to affect your business. This could include hurricanes, floods, or even cyberattacks.
Conduct a Risk Assessment: Evaluate your business’s specific vulnerabilities and weaknesses to better prepare for potential disruptions.
2. Create a Disaster Plan
Develop a Response Plan: Tailor your plan to your business’s needs and operations. Include steps for protecting employees, securing property, and maintaining operations
Communication Strategy: Establish how you will communicate with employees, customers, and suppliers during and after a disaster.
Backup Location: Decide on an alternate location where your business can operate if your primary site is damaged.
3. Protect Your Property
Physical Protections: Install shutters or plywood to protect windows, secure large furniture, and sandbag areas prone to flooding.
Utilities and Equipment: Secure and elevate utilities and critical equipment to prevent water damage. Do not move computers while they are on. Unplug computers and related equipment while taking notes of how they were put together and put them up on tables and desks and cover them with tarp or trash bags.
Backup your Computer Data: Be sure all important data on your computers is backed up into a safe location.
4. Safeguard Important Documents
Backup Critical Information: Store important documents like insurance papers, legal contracts, and financial records in waterproof containers and back them up off-site or in the cloud.
Maintain Contact Lists: Keep an up-to-date list of key contacts, including employees, suppliers, and emergency services.
5. Train Your Employees
Emergency Preparedness Training: Ensure all employees are familiar with the disaster plan and know their roles during an emergency.
Employee Policy: Make sure employees are aware of company policies designed to protect your business and data and that they follow them—keep this info in your Employee Manual.
Regular Drills: Conduct regular drills to practice the plan and make sure everyone is prepared.
6. Review Insurance Coverage
Adequate Coverage: Make sure your insurance covers all potential risks, including business interruption insurance, liability insurance, and cybersecurity insurance.
Document Assets: Take a video inventory of your property and assets to facilitate insurance claims.
After the Emergency: If you have equipment damage, hang on to it if you plan to file a claim for a minimum of 60 days for adjuster inspection.
7. Financial Preparedness
Disaster Recovery Loans: Be aware of financial assistance options like SBA disaster recovery loans for repairing and replacing damaged assets.
Emergency Fund: Maintain an emergency fund to cover immediate expenses following a disaster.
8. Build Resilience
Consider The Cloud: The cloud can provide a great measure of resilience to allow your SMB to continue operations from anywhere, with everything from full production to backup restoration.
Stay Mobile: Mobile devices can be used anywhere and combined with cloud technology, make it convenient to compute and manage your business on the go.
Business Resilience Guide: Utilize resources like the SBA’s Business Resilience Guide to help your business quickly recover and adapt after a disaster.
By taking these steps, small businesses can better prepare for hurricanes and other disasters, ensuring they can quickly resume operations and minimize disruptions.

The Computer Doctors is closely monitoring the tracks of Hurricane Milton in the gulf which has now intensified to Category 5 strength today with a likely landfall as a Category 4 or 5 sometime Wednesday afternoon and well into Thursday. Current tracks are taking it over the central Florida area but high winds and heavy rain are still expected in our area. There is also still a small possibility of a more direct impact to our area, so we are urging you to closely monitor the forecast, your business, and your surroundings and be prepared to act.

Power outages and/or flooding are possible and likely in and around St. Augustine, Jacksonville, and Palatka when the storm passes through the area. You will want to make preparations to protect your equipment if it looks like you will be directly impacted or if you suspect you will be ordered to evacuate your area, in addition to any other hurricane precautions you need to take. Please do not unplug and disconnect equipment if you know you will not be impacted. It could redirect our resources from customers that need them.

UPDATE: Our customers located in Central Florida and in South Florida should begin preparations no later than tomorrow evening.

Preparations IF YOU ANTICIPATE A DIRECT IMPACT or IF YOU ARE ORDERED TO EVACUATE include:

Back up data: If we are not already managing backups for you, make a copy of your data and keep it in a safe place.

Unplug devices: Turn off computers, monitors, printers, and other peripherals, and unplug all power cords. Unplug Ethernet cables from computers and docking stations. Label everything for later on.

Move equipment: Move computers and other equipment off the floor and away from windows and doors. Place them on top of desks or other high, dry locations.

Cover equipment: Cover computers with plastic sheeting or trash bags.

Consider taking laptops home: Decide if you want to take laptops home or leave them in a secure location.

Prepare for power outages. Turn devices and battery backups off and unplug the battery backups from the wall outlet. Take notes or label them so you can put them back later. Raise them onto a table if they are sitting on the floor.

Redirect phones: Forward business phones to a cell phone or to a softphone app so you can make and receive calls over your computer, tablet, or smartphone.

Review and update your plan: Regularly review and update your disaster preparedness plan. Incorporate lessons learned from past incidents.

Do not turn on any equipment after the hurricane if it is visibly damaged or wet.

Above all, be safe. Your life is worth much more than your computer or business.

Keep in mind that restoration from power outages and internet outages are unpredictable and could be delayed. Even after restoration it is not uncommon that temporary repairs to these systems are made with more permanent fixes later on. Be prepared to use alternate options such as cell phone hotspots, moving your devices home or to a hotel room, etc., if your business is severely impacted from these factors.

We will do our best to be available after the storm passes to assist you with recovery if needed or help with getting your systems back online. Please remember that we may find ourselves slammed with recovery work or even have business impacts ourselves so patience is a virtue.

We urge that this storm not be taken lightly. Please continue to monitor the NOAA website at https://www.nhc.noaa.gov and the Florida Division of Emergency Management website at https://www.floridadisaster.org/disaster-updates/Hurricanemilton for updates on the progress of the storm and news regarding hurricane track, advisories, and evacuation orders. When preparing for emergencies, read Jerry's blog for tips by clicking here: https://compdoctors.net/what-smbs-need-to-know-about-hurricane-and-disaster-planning/

National Hurricane Center US Dept of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Hurricane Center 11691 SW 17th Street Miami, FL, 33165 [email protected]