Did hurricane Lala prepare you for THIS weekend?

Aug 21

2 min read

This past weekend sure was "memorable" for us in these islands. If you only lost power for 1 day, count yourself lucky. Between the flooding, heavy winds and property damage, we're all going to need some time to put things back together.

Although hurricane Lala’s torrential and deadly rainfall exceeded already-high predictions, another system is coming this weekend. Although it's supposed to be weaker, it could still have a big impact on areas that are still recovering.

Last weekend was good practice. Ask yourself: is your business prepared for possible power outages, surges, down internet and cell coverage?

The Takeaway

I'm sure some of these should sound familiar, but here are my top 5 tips for what you should do now in preparation for the storm:

Test your remote access before you need it. If there's a chance you'll be working from home, don't wait until Monday morning to find out that you can't connect. Have the people who may need to work remotely test their VPN, remote desktop, cloud applications and other critical systems now. It's much easier to fix an access problem while everyone is still in the office.
Make important information available offline. Internet and cloud services are great until you can't reach them. Download or print the information you may need during an outage, including employee contact information, insurance details, emergency contacts, vendor numbers and basic operating procedures. You don't need to print the whole company, just make sure you're not completely dependent on an internet connection.
Avoid unnecessary IT changes before the storm. This is probably not the weekend to replace a firewall, update your server, reorganize the network or make some other major technology change. Even routine updates can occasionally cause unexpected problems. Keep things stable until the storm passes unless there's a security issue that absolutely needs to be addressed.
Take pictures of your technology and equipment. Walk around the office and take a few photos of your computers, servers, networking equipment and other expensive electronics. If equipment gets damaged, having pictures, serial numbers and an inventory can make insurance claims and replacement much easier. Make sure those pictures are stored somewhere you can access even if you can't get back into the office.
Be extra suspicious of storm-related emails and messages. Unfortunately, scammers love emergencies. Expect fake alerts, donation requests, invoices, password resets and messages pretending to be from employees or vendors. If someone suddenly asks you to send money, change banking information or provide a password because of the storm, slow down and verify the request another way before doing anything.