After the 2022 hurricane season featured 14 massive tropical storms, including eight hurricanes, with two major hurricanes (Fiona and Ian), it’s surprising that so many businesses are still not putting enough time and resources into a solid disaster recovery process, back up methods such as cloud, or business continuity planning. 

AccuWeather’s 2023 hurricane season predictions indicate 11-15 named storms, with four to eight of them reaching hurricane-level strength. 

The start of hurricane season in the Miami area should be a wake-up call to ensure your disaster recovery plans are up to date. 

The good news? 

Once in place, your hurricane disaster recovery plan will protect your business through all kinds of manmade and natural disaster scenarios — including cyber attacks.

How to Protect Your Business

If you’re a native Florida resident, you know all about hurricane preparedness: stocking up on non-perishables, batteries, generators, etc. But those measures most of the time only apply to personal safety situations. 

Companies need to be equally proactive in their business.

Water is a highly destructive force in hurricane form, the sea, or the aftermath of floods. The best thing you can do is protect all your on-premises equipment (computers, phones, and other electronics) in any way possible. Be prepared to shore up windows with plywood or install hurricane shutters. 

But these steps are not enough. You have to go further than that to protect your business core.

Here’s what we recommend:

• Analyze your needs in the event of a natural disaster. What kind of emergencies are most likely to occur in your area? Once you have a good sense of what you’re up against, you can start putting together a natural disaster recovery plan.
• Define and test your plan to make sure it’s really going to work when you need it to. It’s not enough to just assume everything will go smoothly! Through testing, you’ll be able to identify any weak points and make sure everything works as expected.
• Create redundancy sites for your data. It’s not just your computers and phones that are at risk in a natural disaster. Your entire infrastructure could be compromised, so you should consider using cloud storage or other redundant sites to ensure that you don’t lose everything in one fell swoop.
• Batten down the physical places where you do business, and don’t forget to consider potential flying objects! Secure loose items that could become hazards in high winds.
• Educating your staff is a great idea. Make sure everyone knows what they need to do to protect the company’s data as well as themselves and their families. This is especially important for team members who work remotely.
• Test your uninterrupted power supply (UPS) batteries regularly and replace them when you need to. You don’t want to be caught without power in the middle of a crisis!
• Keep an eye on your servers for predictive failures. Identify potential issues before they become full-blown problems, and you’ll put your business in a good spot for the future.
• Update all appropriate software, firmware, and drivers regularly. You want to make sure everything is up-to-date and ready to go when you need it the most.

Last but not least, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us! Whether you want to contact us or book a meeting, we’re here to help. We live and work in Florida, so we know firsthand how important it is to be prepared for regional weather threats like hurricanes. We’re more than happy to give you advice and guidance on creating the perfect hurricane disaster recovery plan for your business.