Company News
Business Continuity Planning: Lessons from the 2024 Hurricane Season
The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season caused significant disruptions across the Gulf Coast. Organizations that had tested their business continuity plans recovered in days. Those that had not faced weeks of downtime and, in several cases, permanent closure.
Archived Article, 2025 Season
This article was published on February 28, 2025, ahead of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, and is kept for reference. Its planning lessons still apply, but the season it refers to has passed.
The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season was another reminder that business continuity planning is not optional for Gulf Coast organizations. The difference between organizations that recovered quickly and those that did not came down to one thing: preparation.
The organizations that fared best had several things in common. First, they had tested their recovery plans within the previous 12 months, not just documented them. Second, their data backups were stored off-site and geographically separated from their primary facilities. Third, they had pre-negotiated relationships with vendors and suppliers so that when the time came to activate recovery procedures, there was no ambiguity about who was responsible for what.
Common Failure Points
Backup systems that had not been tested and failed to restore when needed. Documentation stored only in on-site systems that were inaccessible after a facility was damaged or flooded. Staff who had not been trained on recovery procedures and could not execute them under stress.
For managed IT clients, our disaster recovery and business continuity services include regular tested recovery exercises, geographically distributed backups, and documented runbooks that your team can execute with or without us in the loop.
If you have not reviewed your business continuity plan in the past 12 months, contact us to schedule a review well before the next Atlantic hurricane season begins on June 1.