I wrote this blog post years ago, when Hurricane Sandy was upon us, and updated it for Katrina, then Matthew and Harvey. Now we have a new one coming our way: Irma. So I figured this was the perfect time to re-post this!
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Our offices are right in the cross-hairs of Hurricane Sandy. Here are some tips for running your office “offline” in case you lose electric or access to the internet, from all my wonderful Facebook Friends!
Karyn Greenstreet First tip would be: Contact clients and students to tell them the office might be closed.
Suzanne Hiscock This is a preventative tip: Don’t skimp on webhosting/servers if you have an online business.
Shannon Cherry Power up everything you can before hand. If you have my-fi, know how to use it. Power up meaning- fully charge!
Maureen Flatley Back up batteries, camp stove for coffee, battery operated lanterns, drinking water, lots of simple snacks…….this is our approach.
Suzanne Hiscock Another prepare ahead tip: get a hand-crank phone charger.
Christine Clifton be aware of what you access ‘in the cloud’ and take steps to backup files/data on your hard drive/a toast drive – so you can work ‘offline’
Suzanne Hiscock Oh, and make backups of your entire site if your website is hosted in the storm’s path.
Karyn Greenstreet Print out important files, so you can work offline even if your computer isn’t available. Include all important email addresses and phone numbers.
Maureen Flatley Internet based email has been a godsend too. We live on the water, north of Boston and have a lot of flooding and power outages. You can’t plan for everything but there are some basics. When we have lost power for more than 24 hours and couldn’t access our technology it reminded us that you can’t completely eschew paper records and that we lived for years w/ out email or texting.
Christine Clifton set an out of office message on your cell/email, letting people know what’s going on and you may be offline.
Maureen Flatley I put all of my important documents into email so I can access them from anywhere for any reason. So if I’m in midstream w/ something – which I am today – I can get to it if I decamp to another location.
Karyn Greenstreet That reminds me, Maureen…I use Evernote for the same purpose. I have Evernote on everthing so that no matter where I am, and what machine I’m using, I have everything at my fingertips.
Donna Soffen take care of any (in this case) end of the month autoship changes or additions before you lose power. and contact anyone in your upline/downline that isnt in the storms potential path & ask them to help take care of any customers/new recruits that might enroll or purchase from your site that they can see from their backoffice- on your behalf.
Karyn Greenstreet Another tip: get a blank journal. If your power is out for 5 days (like ours was last year), there’s nothing so scrumptious as writing “by hand” again.
Kathy Milici Have plenty of chocolate on hand!
Angie Robinson Keep a list of your nearest Starbucks – coffee, outlets, and wi-fi
Karyn Greenstreet Good idea, Angie, and Panera Bread has wifi and outlets, too … as does our local library.
Marlene Hielema Pen and lined paper to write with so that if your computer runs out of battery power, you can still jot stuff down. Books to read. Deck of cards to play manual solitaire. Scrabble game.
Karyn Greenstreet Another tip: backup all your files, preferably to an online backup service like Mozy, Carbonite or iDrive. That way you can access everything from a new computer, if yours gets damaged in the storm.
Sherice Jacob Invest in a UPS in case the power goes out, you’ll have a few minutes to save everything.
Carole Sevilla Brown I’m with Sherice. My power back-up gives me about an hour and a half reserve power. This is a good reminder that it would be a good thing to have a few evergreen posts in reserve for times like this. And I’ve got lots of batteries for my digital voice recorder because I do a lot of “writing” that way.
Lisa Wood have a car charger on hand to charge your phone, plus an adapter to charge other electronics
C.J. Hayden Give your clients and team members a backup email to reach you in case your usual one goes down. Has happened to me more than once with natural disasters and regional power outages.
eTerri McMahon Zwierzynski Thanks for reminding me to backup my website (every Monday!) Honestly, I’d find it hard to focus on work, with kids and dogs and the whole differentness of the situation. So I’d go with a good book, candles/lanterns, a deck of cards and a few boardgames.
C.J. Hayden Oh, and if your phone service is a landline, make sure you have an old-fashioned handset that requires no power to operate. You may keep phone service but lose power. Happened to us in the ’89 San Francisco quake.
Are Email Newsletters Dead?
Good for you for publishing this quickly, Karyn! I hope it helped some folks out.
Give your team a list of clients numbers and even family members, just in case you can’t reach them, your executive team can.
Let them do social media status update for you.
Have biz/home/auto insurance information handy in case you need it. And at least 3 weeks of cash on hand.
Above all, BE SAFE. Don’t forget to hug the kitties. 🙂
Always have a back up plan, and indeed, that supply of chocolate. Although, who needs bad weather as an excuse to eat chocolate?
Isn’t that the truth, Chris! 🙂