When should a Florida business test its backups?

Before June 1, when hurricane season starts, and again whenever a storm enters the forecast. A backup that has never been restored is a hope, not a plan.

Should we unplug our server before a hurricane?

If you expect flooding or extended outages, yes: shut it down cleanly, unplug it, and raise it off the floor. Do it only after confirming you have a current off-site backup.

Will our phones work if the office is closed?

They will if you use a cloud phone system configured to forward to cell phones or a backup location. An on-premise phone box stops when the building loses power or internet.

Hurricane IT Checklist for Southwest Florida Businesses

The short version

Every Southwest Florida business should be able to answer three questions before hurricane season, which runs June 1 to November 30:

If this building were gone tomorrow, where is a copy of our data that we have actually restored from?
How do customers reach us if the office has no power for a week?
Who on our team can work from home, and do they have what they need to do it securely?

If any answer is "I'm not sure," the checklist below closes the gap.

Before the season

Get a real off-site backup. A drive next to the server is not a backup for a flood. Keep at least one copy off site and in the cloud, and make it immutable, so ransomware or a mistake can't delete it.
Restore something. Pick a file, a mailbox, and ideally a whole server, and restore it. Write down how long it took. That number is your real recovery time.
Move phones to the cloud. A cloud phone system can ring cell phones, play a storm message you recorded in advance, and route calls to whichever location is open.
Make sure people can work from home. Laptops instead of desktops where possible, Microsoft 365 with multi-factor authentication, and files in OneDrive or SharePoint rather than on one office server.
Write a one-page recovery plan. What comes back first, who calls whom, where the backups are, and how to reach your IT provider when the office phone is down. Print it.
Check your cyber and business-interruption insurance. Know what your policy requires, such as MFA or tested backups, before you need to file a claim.

When a storm enters the cone

Confirm the latest off-site backup completed and is less than 24 hours old
Update the auto-attendant with a storm message and turn on call forwarding to cell phones
Send staff home with laptops, chargers, and anything they need to work remotely
Shut down servers and network equipment cleanly if flooding or long outages are likely
Unplug equipment, raise it off the floor, and cover it if water intrusion is possible
Photograph your equipment and serial numbers for insurance
Share the recovery plan and your IT provider's emergency contact with your team

The week after

Don't power anything on that got wet. Water-damaged equipment can short out and destroy the data on it. Have it inspected first.
Expect power surges and flickers. Restore power to equipment through a UPS, not straight from the wall.
Watch for storm scams. Phishing spikes after every major storm: fake FEMA notices, fake insurance adjusters, fake vendor invoices. Remind staff to verify any request for money or passwords by phone.
Restore in priority order. Phones and email first, then the systems you bill and schedule from, then everything else.
Write down what went wrong. The week after a storm is the best time to fix the plan for the next one.

How we handle storms for our clients

For managed clients, we verify every backup before a storm, check in with every client by phone, and confirm phones and email will keep working from anywhere. Afterward, we're on the road as soon as it's safe, from Englewood to Sarasota, Venice, North Port, and Port Charlotte, bringing systems back in the order each client's plan calls for.

If you're not sure your business would be back up in a day, start with a free IT and compliance assessment. It takes about 30 minutes and ends with a written list of what to fix first.