July 2003

SBA site provides disaster-planning information

If a tornado, hurricane or flood devastated your office, would you be prepared? Small business owners should develop emergency and recovery plans for their businesses and implement safeguards to their computer systems to ensure operational continuity, Small Business Administration administrator Hector V. Barreto told a town-hall audience in Philadelphia.

The SBA advises small business to:

• Develop contingency plans to remain in operation if your office is unusable.

• Store extra hard-to-replace supplies off-site.

• Upgrade your facility now, such as strengthening exterior walls, adding a retaining wall or shoring up a creek bank.

• Purchase a backup generator to provide power for critical functions.

• Make backup copies of all critical records, such as accounting and employee data and patient databases.

• Keep invoices, shipping lists and other documentation of your computer system configuration off-site so that you can quickly order replacement components.

• Surge protect all computer and telephone equipment through power and phone lines. A power surge through a telephone line can destroy an entire computer through a connected modem. Invest in a surge protector with a battery backup to keep systems working through blackouts.

• Maintain an up-to-date copy of phone numbers, computer and Internet logon codes and passwords, employee and patient phone numbers and other critical information in an accessible location.

• Develop an employee “telephone tree” to contact employees in an emergency.

• Review your insurance coverage.

• Consider business-interruption insurance.

To aid small business owners such as doctors of chiropractic, the SBA has a new Web site containing information on business continuity and emergency planning. The SBA’s “Be Aware and Prepare” Web page is at: http://www.sba.gov/beawareandprepare/.

Source: Small Business Administration, www.sba.gov.

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