Eight Tips that Could Save Your Business

Unlike earthquakes or tornadoes, the unseen danger of hurricanes is that they offer some warning time and an opportunity to handle a few last-minute details just prior to the event.

There is a temptation to wait until the last minute to try to accomplish the myriad of things that need to be done well before disaster strikes. However, it is usually not enough time to develop and execute a thorough business preparation and recovery plan.

1. HAVE A BACK UP PLAN
Businesses should develop an emergency plan long before hurricane season begins. Items such as identification of mission-critical applications, selection of essential backup data, storing the data off site and preparing key personnel cannot be accomplished under the gun of an impending hurricane.

These are fundamental planning elements that need to be evaluated long before their need becomes manifest. Other considerations to be addressed are loss of power, flooding, denial of access to the site, structural damage and the inability of employees to get to work.

2. SITE PROTECTION
There is little that can be done if your site happens to be in a low lying area and exposed power lines. Some preventive measures that may be taken include installing uninterruptable power supplies (batteries and generators), backup water sources and a supply of gasoline-powered pumps to keep the lower levels of the facility clear of flood waters. Boarding up windows and other vulnerable apertures can protect a building from high-speed flying debris which has been known to severely damage structures in a powerful hurricane. While all of these measures may not be sufficient to prevent site evacuation depending upon the severity of the storm, they can facilitate the reoccupation of the business after the storm has moved on.

3. REMOTE OPERATIONS
Denial of site access is a very high probability in a severe hurricane. Roads may be flooded or closed by authorities. Employees may be unable to leave their homes in a state of emergency or may be unwilling to leave their families. It is very important to plan for this scenario in which your business facility is operational but the employees are unable to get there. One way to prepare for this contingency is to develop a method to operate the critical components of your business remotely.

4. SITE SELF SUFFICIENCY
Another way address the problem of "denial of access" is to prepare a specially selected team of employees to "camp out" at the business site. This plan would necessarily include the provisioning of food and water supplies, the acquisition of sleeping facilities (folding cots or sleeping bags are a few choices that work), the availability of bathing facilities and amenities (such as razors, shaving cream, toothpaste, soap, blow dryers, etc.) and spare clothes for all employees. Some employers may even choose to provide support for employees' families while the employees are engaged in business continuity activities.

Employers can provide transportation and lodging to families to temporarily relocate them to areas outside the strike area of the storm. Employers may even engage outside contractors to look after the employees' homes and repair damage so the employees are not distracted by these concerns. In a hurricane, there will always be a few days of warning to iron out the last minute details of engaging this type of plan, but the principles and general approach need to be worked out far in advance.

5. ALTERNATE SITE PLAN
There are two generally accepted methods of recovering and resuming business processing at an alternate location. One involves using another computer site within the affected company's enterprise. While this is generally accepted, it rarely works and usually results in turning one site's disaster into a disaster for both sites. The reason for this is that the second site rarely has the capacity to handle both its own workload and that of the stricken site.

6. GET OUT OF TOWN
Assuming that you have a subscription with a continuity and recovery service provider, it is important that you use the warning period afforded by a hurricane to identify your recovery team, identify and verify your critical data needs and send the data to the alternate recovery center before the hurricane disrupts transportation in your area. If you wait too long, the data may not get to your service provider on time, impeding your business recovery. This is true whether the plan calls for processing recovery (any size system), network recovery or simply end user recovery. Critical personnel also must be dispatched to the other site as early as possible before the hurricane hits. Remember, a lot of other people will be trying to get out of town at the same time and an airline seat may be very hard to come by.

7. STORE YOUR DATA OFF SITE
One way to ensure that your data does not get stuck in your area by the same storm that has paralyzed your data center is to store the data somewhere else. In some cases, where point-of-failure recovery is required and the recovery window needs to be measured in minutes, electronic vaulting of data may be appropriate. Both of these measures ensure that the data will be where you need it to be in a recovery. If you do not back-up and store your data on a regular basis, you should ship the latest set of backup data to your alternate site at the first sign of impending hurricane danger.

8. DON'T GET HURRICANE-HAPPY
It should be obvious by now that a lot needs to be done to prepare for any number of contingencies that may occur. What is required is a serious, thoughtful and committed approach to the challenge of recovering your business, well before hurricane season begins.