Hurricane Irene Reflections with The Master of Disaster and Connections.com

Hi Jonathan Garber, The Master of Disaster here at Connections for Business. This is my first video following Hurricane Irene. I'm amazed at the number of news pundits who are saying Hurricane Irene was over hyped or even a letdown based on the high level of preparation. Some stories used the phrase "Dodged a bullet".

As of today, there are 37 people dead and six and half million people without power. States in the Northeast are expecting record floods to wash away homes, businesses, roads and infrastructure. That's months and years of recovery, not days. As bad as that is, it could have been worse. Without all that hype, evacuations and calls to stock up on supplies, the casualties would be higher, much higher.
The experts had it right on the money. They said don't mind the category rating, it's the water that'll get you. A giant, wet, slow moving storm dumping tons of water on an already drenched region. It was a recipe for disaster.
A viewer of The Master of Disaster from San Francisco commented on our Facebook page that he wishes they could have the same amount of warning for an earthquake as the Northeast got for the hurricane. All I could say is, no. You have to be prepared all the time with an emergency kit and a plan. If you're a business, your obligations are multiplied. You owe a proper Business Continuity Plan to yourself, your family, your employees, your clients and vendors. They're all counting on you for their economic survival.
Here's the good news. A business continuity solution for your vital data systems is not hard or even expensive. We provide solutions as affordable as our DataSafe Backup and Disaster Recovery Appliance which includes offsite replication to our secure data bunker all the way up to a full-time Cloud Computing solution for maximum uptime, availability and cost savings.
Here a little perspective. 37 dead so far from Hurricane Irene. Almost four times that amount of people killed without warning from tornadoes in Joplin Missouri earlier this year and 10 times that amount killed in the Mississippi River flooding back in April. What's hard to calculate in addition to these human tragedies are the thousands of businesses that will never open again. The hundreds of thousands of employees without jobs and the billions of dollars of economic activity lost.

It doesn't have to be this way. You need disaster planning for yourself and your business. I produced a number of mini-workshops on disaster preparation and they're free. You have to take it from here. If you are a business and would like a complimentary risk assessment from me in South Florida or one of my peers located throughout the country, please drop me an email.

This is Jon Garber, The Master of Disaster, asking you, as always, What would you do if Godzilla stepped on your business.


Welcome to the Master of Disaster Video Blog. This is an ongoing series of tips and strategies to help you prepare your business and home to survive any type of disaster. Look for simple ways to get started and explanations of industry terms in easy to understand language.
I am a Certified Business Continuity Planner at Connections for Business
Please email me with questions or suggestions for topics mod@connections.com and visit http://blog.connections.com
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