This information is intended to help you prepare for hurricanes follow these steps to protect your computers as well as your data. If you have a backup solution, make sure you take a tape or disk off site to safeguard your data against fire, theft or flood. It's a good idea to ship the disk or cassette out of state or to an area that is not threatened by the hurricane. If your backup is done to a secondary hard disk drive or to an external hard disk drive, you can remove that disk and take it off site OR you can copy the data to a CD ROM if you have a CD ROM burner.

 Although having a backup copy on a secondary hard disk drive prevents data loss due to hard disk crashes, viruses, etc., fire, flood or theft can damage the data on both disks as long as the disks are located in the same building or in the same hurricane zone.

Before leaving or closing shop, unplug your sever, your routers and switches and ALL of your computer equipment from the wall outlet. Simply turning them off is not enough. Make sure the plug is unplugged from the wall outlet. During hurricanes, AC power may fluctuate and damage your sensitive electronic equipment. In addition, when power is restored it arrives as a SURGE before leveling off. This is extremely dangerous and damaging.

If you believe that water damage may occur from leaks in the roof or broken windows, etc., cover your server with plastic wrapping and lift it off the ground. A garbage bag will work just fine. Make sure your computer is OFF as air needs to circulate to prevent overheating. A computer that is covered and is left turned ON is in danger of being damaged and is also a fire hazard. Make sure your computers are OFF before covering them.

When returning to work, if these is any sign of flood or you suspect the computers may have moisture inside, DO NOT turn them on. Call a certified technician and have them inspected.

(c) 2007 Miguel Fra, Falcon IT Services, Miami, Florida