While most organizations and individuals have a hurricane plan with strategies designed to protect both people and property during the development or review of a plan it’s worth considering that:

In addition to people and property, information is a vital asset.

Disaster preparedness is about more than hurricanes.

Sonya Sherman of Ignition said the first step to ensuring records are properly protected is to identify vital records and critical systems.

“For businesses, these include records which establish your legal and financial position, and those that document the rights and entitlements of your investors, staff and customers,” said Ms. Sherman.

“Remember to include those records that help you operate during and after a disaster, such as plans, procedures and key contact details. Duplicates, reference materials, information that can be easily reconstructed or obtained from another source, should not be considered among your vital records.”

The second step is to ensure vital records are easy to recognize.

“For both physical and electronic records, this could involve listing them, keeping them in separate storage or using “flags” – like coloured folders and labels, or metadata fields that mark the records as vital,” said Ms Sherman. This enables vital records to be prioritised for backup, relocation or recovery in the event of a disaster.

The third step is to put in place appropriate strategies to protect your vital records.

“Specific techniques will vary, depending on the format of the records and the expected hazards as described below,” said Ms Sherman.

“Most importantly: formalize your plan and keep it up to date; assign responsibilities; practice, practice, practice your procedures!”

Ms Sherman noted that companies should prepare for all types of things that can go wrong in order to protect their records, whether it is hurricanes, water leaks, human error, computer viruses or hackers, even employee sabotage.

She advised ensuring storage conditions take account of security requirements, and also the length of time records need to be retained for legal and business purposes.

“This will allow you to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of on-site/off-site/online/offline storage, and select suitable storage media to enable ongoing maintenance of the records for that period of time,” she said.

“Regular and systematic disposal of records is one of the most effective ways to reduce the likelihood of a man-made disaster,” continued Ms Sherman.

“Fewer records are easier to store, manage and protect.”

She advised using an existing hurricane plan as your starting point, and ensuring the plan includes steps to adequately protect vital records and critical information systems as well as safeguards for people and property.

“Review the plan and consider other risks to your records, building up to a comprehensive strategy for business continuity and disaster recovery,” she said.

“Protecting your vital records can help to minimize the risks and losses associated with a disaster, and quickly return you to business (or life) as usual.”