Is Your Home Ready for Severe Weather? 4 Tips To Help You Prepare

Severe weather events seem to be developing more frequently and they are more destructive when they hit. While you can’t be prepared for every possible situation, taking these steps can reduce the impact of severe weather on your business operations. 

1. Have an Emergency Response Plan in Place

Having a sound plan developed and shared with stakeholders ahead of time makes any disaster situation less dangerous. There are numerous resources on the Ready Business website to help you create an appropriate plan for your type of business and the most common disasters in your area. 

2. Assess Physical Structures

If there is a storm forecast, or if your region is prone to natural disasters, it pays to keep a close eye on the stability of business facilities. Do routine inspections to ensure they are prepared to weather storms and make any necessary repairs promptly. Use tools designed to help minimize damage, like a roof load calculator to ensure snow loads don’t overwhelm roofs. 

3. Secure Data and Important Records

Any business that relies on digital records will want to implement multiple backup systems. In addition to routine daily backups, a failsafe system should be installed to activate in a power outage. Using cloud storage can also minimize the impact of weather on data storage. If your business still keeps hard copies of most records, they should be in a secure location that will not be impacted by an adverse weather event.  

4. Know What Emergency Assistance Programs Are Available

A large part of getting through severe weather is knowing what resources are available to help in the cleanup and rebuilding processes. Take time to discover and make connections within these resources ahead of time, if possible. 

Severe weather can wreak havoc on business operations. However, developing a strong emergency plan, securing physical structures and data and knowing what resources are available to help with repairs can minimize the impact.