And Now One More Time for 2009!

DISASTER

It seems appropriate that after a long period of down-time, that I would follow my last posting on "Tornado Preparedness" with one one regarding Hurricanes. Yes, it is that time of year again. It is the official beginning of hurricane season in the northern hemisphere. So this is my annual message/reminder on the topic.

Below are some resources to help you be and stay prepared. First is a link to the American Red Cross site for the start of the season and how to be prepared:

http://tinyurl.com/ljj962

More preparedness tips on ready.gov:

http://tinyurl.com/5rjd7b

For more info on hurricanes themselves, check out the howstuffworks site:

http://tinyurl.com/bqpbn

So, keeping this somewhat brief, I have given you a few sites that should cover most of your preparedness needs and provide checklists so please check them or similar resources.

TIP: Make certain you have an emergency AM/FM radio and plenty of water! (This from the little bit of experience my family had.) Oh, and gather-up plenty of things to occupy your young children's time. Anything to keep young ones minds and hands busy so they can take their minds off of things for a moment and not be too bored either.

Stay ready!

Happy St. Tornado Preparedness Day!

Seriously, to those of you celebrating St. Patrick's Day:

"Sláinte chuig na fir, agus go mairfidh na mná go deo!"

or, "health to the men, and may the women live forever"

(I do have a dog named Guinness and there is a picture of me somewhere on the internet by now under the likely title of "Guinness Fairy", so I was obliged to get that out there.) Well, on to the original purpose here. It is American Red Cross month and today is Tornado Preparedness Day here in Virginia. Disaster Preparedness season never ends or takes a holiday. Take a moment to go through the checklists to make certain your family or business is prepared or you have prepared your family. Look at the Red Cross site and the FEMA sites as well. Find the resources beyond tornadoes for disasters that may suit the geographic region for the dangers you face. Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fires (home and brush/forest), theft, crazy third-world dictatorships, you get my drift.

Do not forget for your home and business to make certain you have properly identified your critical assets, updated all critical disaster response processes and policies for data backup and restore. Perform a business impact analysis, defined business continuity and contingencies. For getting a risk assessment initiated at a business enterprise level, the Carnegie Mellon CERT's OCTAVE approach to Risk Assessment may assist you quite a bit. There are courses offered as well (I get no kick-back!. I have taken the course and find it very-worthwhile, so I am suggesting it as an option).

Again, the Red Cross has some links and documents that can help pull all this together as well.

We could go on about this stuff for weeks; but I have given you some important resources at least. You can always shoot me a comment to further discussion. I may get motivated and add a checklist of my own, or two! Send ideas. And least I forget, I know the good folks over at SANS have papers and checklists on the subject of DR/BIA/COOP on their sites as well, so check them out (Again, I get no kick-back; but they do have classes, and I have taken many of them that are absolutely first-class - excuse the pun!).


Sláinte!