We're heading into peak hurricane season
Although the Atlantic Basin hurricane season officially began on June 1, peak season is just now picking up. Warm tropical waters have already sent hot, humid air churning throughout the center of the United States, spawning thunderstorms, flooding and even tornadoes in Kentucky, Nebraska, Idaho, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Iowa and South Dakota already this month. Do you have a comprehensive disaster recovery plan and backup communications system ready to deploy in your company or community?
What are some steps you can take to prepare for a possible natural disaster?
- Think through the potential impacts. What can you do if employees can’t get to work? How can they work from their homes or hotel rooms?
- What will you do if your offices are inundated by flood waters? Do you have a secondary site with servers which can back up and allow uninterrupted access to information?
- Can you rely on cellular phones if landlines go down? Do you have satellite phones in case of emergency?
- Can you temporarily move your headquarters to a mobile facility? How can you establish internet connectivity, phone and fax communications for this facility?
- How much will it cost you every day your communications systems are down?
- Does everyone know what to do in this event? Have they practiced the scenario?
- Are you responsible for coordinating rescue efforts? Damage assessments?
- How will you coordinate logistics for this effort?
- Do you have a backup communications system?
- Have you included satellite communications in your disaster recovery plan?
When landlines, cellular towers and internet services fail due to natural disasters, satellite is your lifeline. Safely orbiting 23,000 miles above the earth, satellites are immune to the disasters we feel on the ground and can restore cellular services, internet access, voice lines and private networks.
Portable satellite antennas can be safely stored indoors during severe weather and then rolled out after the storm. Automated deployment means that anyone in a company, even the janitor, can be trained to establish vital communications links in minutes. Pre-configured and tested electronics are already integrated into the network and can begin securely passing information to other data centers, the internet or corporate applications ensuring communications for logistics planning, damage assessments and business continuity.
