Family and friends in New York and New Jersey are sitting in the dark. Many are cold. Immobile. Long lines at gas stations. Gas is hard to come by. So is heating oil for many. Subways are hobbled. The trash is stacking up. School kids are bouncing off the walls at home. Bored. "Someone please text me,” they're pleading. Commuter workers are having a tough time getting into work. And all these people are not the ones who got hit hardest....those dealing with floodwaters in basements, broken houses, boats, shorelines. And more bad weather heading in.
Let's face it whenever there's a disaster, institutions fail to do the job. We, the people, must be crazy, because we keep expecting that government services and utilities will come to the rescue. By their very nature bureaucracies don't have the cultures and forethought needed to be ready for or deal with real disasters. Not good enough. Never fast enough. But we keep expecting it to be different because we pay those people. Stop and think about that. How often does money equal expectation?
Business owners should know better. But do they? Do you? Is your business prepared to respond to a disaster and get back to doing business?
What will your employees do if they can't get to the office? What if you have no power? What if your data and communications systems fail?
One good idea is Business Continuity Insurance. In case your business burns down and you need to rebuild, that's a good idea.
Another good idea is to automatically backup your business data. Data recovery in the cloud makes it an affordable option for nearly any size business.
But, here's an idea, few business people think of. The answer is people helping people. Notice that in the Sandy disaster, volunteers and NGOs are getting through to areas that institutions are not reaching. We have to learn to help each other or suffer without each other.
Talk to your business friends and come together and agree to protect each other in case any of you suffer. And, connect with other business disaster recovery pools in other areas to help your group if it's a larger local disaster.
Your website can also be configured to work for you in a disaster. The other choice is to go dark. Don't go dark. See the light.