Can you afford to take the risk?

Although we all hear about Disaster Recovery, for many of us it doesn’t resonate. It especially seems foreign when your geographic location rarely experiences any out of the ordinary weather conditions.

I admit, although it’s a conversation I have with our clients all the time, it didn’t resonate with me either.  It’s been all over the news. Tornados in Tennessee, flooding in Missouri, fires in Arizona. These weather related events always seem so far away when I hear about them, especially living in Massachusetts.   We have been very fortunate.  Except for a couple of hurricanes, we frankly don’t experience harsh weather conditions. A large snowstorm with a power outage is about as bad as it gets.

We were recently affected by a tornado and when I heard about the tornado warning, it didn’t really bother me. In fact it didn’t even cause a reaction from me, and no-one from work was concerned either.  I even went shopping for my step daughter’s birthday that evening.  I chatted a little bit with the store employees and other customers about the dark skies, but it was the typical New England conversation about the weird weather.

As I drove onto 495- something felt weird.   I realized that the typically busy road seemed a bit deserted. An emergency broadcast came on the radio and it wasn’t a test. I STILL wasn’t that concerned as I pulled into a Burger King to get a quick dinner (true story.)

My family was directly impacted by the tornado which ended up impacting the Springfield, MA area. Damage to my in-laws house was minimal. Unfortunately some of their neighbors had a different story.  Two lots down, a house is completely gone, across the street the roof is gone.  Although in ways it brought the community together, there are a lot of emotional scars left over.  A simple rainstorm now brings on tremendous worry and stress.

There has been much worse across the country, we know that. However I think every Massachusetts resident, when they hear tornado warning- there will be no shopping or eating at Burger King. We will all be sure to get back to our families as quickly as possible.

Many times we think it won’t happen to us. “I’ll take the risk,” some companies say about covering themselves in the case of a disaster. Still many companies have a disaster recovery plan in place, but they don’t truly know what processes and systems keep their business running efficiently. Are you covered for all crucial business systems? As I learned, disasters do happen and they can happen anywhere.