Business continuity, Content

Tropical Storm Barry 2019: Disaster Recovery Plans Activated

Former Tropical Storm Barry continues to rain down on Louisiana and Mississippi, but cities such as New Orleans were largely spared from doomsday flooding scenarios.

Still, there are roughly 53,000 power outages across Louisiana as of Monday morning, according to PowerOutage.US. In response to the storm, Home Depot sent 35 truckloads of power generators to areas hit by Barry, Bloomberg reported.

Channel partners, IT service providers and MSPs (managed services providers) in the region should continue to double-check business continuity, data protection and disaster recovery plans.

Example Disaster Recovery Plans, Checklists

Example plans include: Mike Semel's freely available Disaster Checklist (from 2018) and a Datto-produced tip sheet (also from 2018) that includes these recommendations: 

  • Send out the storm plan to your employees, customers and partners. Include a communications schedule and stick to it.
  • If your business cannot withstand a period of lengthy downtime, secure a facility further inland for you and your employees or ensure everyone is able to work remotely.
  • Tropical storms can put data centers out of commission. Make sure your business data, backups, applications, and server images are stored off-site.
  • The company has a Natural Disaster Recovery Guide here.

    • Small Business Disaster Recovery Loans

    If Barry triggers major damage, it's a safe bet the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) my offer a loan program to get small businesses back on their feet.

    Information about such loans typically surfaces a few days or weeks after a storm event via these communication pipelines:

    • Visit DisasterLoan.sba.gov for loan information;
    • Call the SBA Customer Service Center at 800-659-2955 (800-877-8339 for the deaf and hard-of-hearing); or 
    • email [email protected].

      • MSPs: Thriving After a Storm?

      While some MSPs may worry cash flow and customer health after a hurricane or tropical storm, benchmarking data from Service Leadership Inc. suggests MSPs and IT service providers actually thrived amid post-Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts in Houston.

      The likely reason: Customers are willing to pay a premium to get back up and running quickly, and they’re also more interested in ongoing data protection services after a major storm, according to Service Leadership CEO Paul Dippell.

      Stay tuned to this blog for ongoing Barry updates from ChannelE2E.

      Joe Panettieri

      Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.

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