Disaster Recovery for Businesses

Disasters are an unfortunate fact of life, especially if you live near a coastline. El Niño, Katrina, Irene, and now Sandy have all hit and left havoc behind. If you’re a small business, disasters like hurricanes can take an enormous toll. But there are some things you can do to help yourself in case of an emergency.

If your business has taken damage from a natural disaster, you should immediately let your insurer know the situation. Do this before cleaning up any damage. Many insurance companies will need to survey the damage to give you an estimate, and if you’ve cleaned it all up, you’ve taken away evidence to support your claims. It may be inconvenient, but keep damaged materials around until you’ve gotten surveyed.

If you’re in need of financial assistance, check out the Small Business Administration. You might be able to get a long-term, low-rate business loan to help with the cost of any damage or economic downturn caused by disaster.

Be sure to communicate with any customers or clients about what’s going on. Let them know when business resumes or if there were any other ill effects from the disaster—shipping delays, inventory issues, etc. Also connect with them on a personal level, sending well wishes via e-mail or social media. Be honest about the situation and give them as many details as you can.

Be aware that federal aid might not come quickly, and be prepared to deal with that accordingly. If you’re in a big area, like New York, there will most likely be lots of claims stacking up. It can take some time to get through them and to you. Have a backup plan if this is the case.

Be prepared: have a disaster plan that outlines how you will respond in case of a disaster. Be sure to consider things like how you will deal with incoming business before, during, and after a disaster. Consider all the worst options, so you’ll be prepared for whatever happens. Back up data on a regular basis to a cloud service so that if computer hardware is destroyed, you won’t have to start from scratch.

There are always too many “what ifs” to think about when it comes to preparing for the worst. But they are worth considering so that you’ll know how to handle things and keep afloat if and when disaster strikes.