How do you prepare for something that has never happened before, something that no one could ever have imagined? Yes, I’m in Nashville, Tennessee and this past weekend, 15 inches of rain fell in less than 48 hours, nothing can handle that. Places that have never flooded before have flooded completely, homes and businesses have been lost. Roads have been washed away and the Cumberland River is still rising.
So today as businesses try to get to their offices and find their buildings flooded or gone, many of them will be shocked to find they have devastating losses and they’d never considered flood insurance. So how could these businesses have prepared better? I have a few ideas, but I’d love your ideas too.
1. Just two weeks ago, we started backing up online. We had been doing local backups for years, but finally started the process to use Carbonite online backups. So all our files are online, secure and constantly being updated. This way if we lose the computers, the files will be safe and available to connect to as soon as we get new computers. So even though some time will be lost, at least the files won’t have to be reconstructed.
2. Don’t put your computers and servers on the floor! Many people have inches of water on their floors. Just inches of water can ruin equipment, it’s better to avoid dust build up to have your equipment up off the floor anyway.
3. Check your insurance. What is your coverage? Discuss it with your agent and make sure you are completely covered.
What an experience – my office is on the second floor, on a high hill, but we still watched the dry watershed area behind us fill up and develop a current and a waterfall. Hard to believe it was possible. But the whole experience has made us review our operations again…are you ready?
