Preparing for unexpected storms can be difficult. One thing we can anticipate and plan for is the official hurricane season that begins on June 1 and continues through November 30.
Predicting hurricanes is no small feat. As advanced as technology has become, you’ve probably noticed that even a 24-hour forecast can fail from time to time. Regardless of forecast accuracy, knowing how to prepare for a hurricane that brings its worst will leave you much better off, even if major storms never occur.
Even with a few days' notice, it takes an enormous effort to adequately prepare your business for the various elements of a hurricane. Keep these three things in mind when preparing your business for a natural disaster.
How to Prepare Your Business for Hurricane Season
1. Protect your property
Be sure you have the equipment you need on hand, because hardware and department stores may not have what you're looking for in the eleventh hour. Staying up to date on the condition of your building year-round is a wise way to expedite the process of preparing your business for a hurricane.
2. Protect important documents and information
It could be argued that tax information, inventory records, and customer data are more important than the physical assets of your business during and after a disaster. After all, if you lose data that is not properly backed up, it is essentially gone forever.
While it seems that everything can be backed up digitally nowadays, it's worth keeping physical copies of essential information on hand if you can't access information located on a hard drive or in the cloud.
Whichever way your information is stored, remember to make sure that it's secure and not at risk of being compromised. You could be facing a whole other disaster if your data gets compromised.
Lastly, time is of the essence when your property and inventory have been damaged. A good way to make sure an insurance claim is processed quickly — and the recovery process begins immediately — is by having vital information at your fingertips.
3. Keep a preparedness checklist
First and foremost, make sure every employee is in the know. Regularly updating phone numbers and emails will help ensure this. Also, appointing one person to coordinate updates will help avoid message confusion and keep every on the same page.
Next, determine the key parties that will help you recover from the damage. In addition to your insurance agent and insurance company, this includes:
- contractors,
- vendors, and
- other business partners.
Don’t wait until watches and warnings are posted –it may very well be too late to adequately protect your business from the storm itself and recovering from it afterwards. Download our Hurricane Preparedness Guide and be ready all season long.
