If a hurricane hit your business today, would your data survive?

Here’s how to protect  your data from an impending natural disaster.

• Keep all electronics out of basements and off the floor in general. Basements are naturally cool places, but are the first to flood.
• If possible, unplug your hardware-laptops, printers, and other electronic devices-from all power sources.
• Invest in a surge protector. Surge protectors and battery backups should be checked or replaced every few years to ensure the highest level of effectiveness.
• To help protect against water damage enclose any valuable devices in plastic or place in a water-tight plastic bin.

Sometimes hardware damage is inevitable, so perform backups often. This will prevent data loss even if the device itself is destroyed. Although there are reasons to be wary of online data storage, the cloud might make sense for people in disaster-prone locales who can’t afford off-site storage. You’ll be storing your files on remote servers that will be safe from whatever disaster takes down your computer.