Richard W. Schierer
May 2010
You can never plan too much for a disaster or storm. And to help you out there are tons of free information on the internet to help you.
Here is one:
http://www.disastersafety.org/text.asp?id=continuity_PDF
Seems too much for you? It probably is, so hire a professional. It’s worth it!
Even if you are just using MS Word to type up all the key information, it is better than doing nothing. Always make sure that you have a good backup and that means doing a test restore and opening those files to make sure that they are not corrupt. Identify what hazards apply to your business. These can be natural hazards (e.g. severe weather, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc.) or man-made hazards (e.g. computer viruses, vandalism, theft, etc.).
Determine the risk that these hazards pose to your business. Probability, severity and length of impact involving these hazards will help determine how much and what kind of risk each poses.
Develop plans and procedures to help your business prepare for, respond to and recover from interruptions. For example, you may determine that a power failure would cause you to lose access to your critical accounting records. You may implement a plan to provide backup power by purchasing a generator and ensure your records are backed up to tape or other media.
Continue to refine your plans through exercises and evaluation of how they performed in real events.
Richard W. Schierer
631-375-4512